Our urge for social contact on the net seems to have no boundaries. First, there was Facebook, then Twitter and now a new social site has sprung to life, Omegle.
Omegle is a new chat service, which lets you get in contact with a total stranger. Every chat session is completely anonymous. The only thing you get to know about your chat partner is the red text, ‘Stranger:’ nothing else. After chatted with several people, I am not sure that being anonymous lures out the best in people, though.
Nonetheless, it is very fascinating to chat with complete strangers and occasionally you can be involved in rather bizarre conversations, like who would win a fistfight between Lizzy Borden and Anne Frank(!).
The simplicity of Omegle is one of its strengths, but also one of its weaknesses. As you might suspect, there are many strange/sick people out there using Omegle, which lowers the quality of the service a lot. Of about 10 chat sessions, you would be glad if one evolved into a normal chat conversation. Luckily, if you step into a bad chat session all you need to do is click disconnect and you could start fresh again, with a new stranger.
When I visited the site there was around 3,000 users connected, which is a figure that I suspect will grow the next couple of days, as the site gets more buzz around the world.
So if you are ready to start chatting with a complete stranger, point your favorite browser to, http://omegle.com/