VideoChat. Free Video Chat to meet cool people around the world!

As we have previously talked in Random Chat, the VideoChat was introduced sometime in the 2000s. It is unclear when did it was launched exactly. Some people cite ICQ as the first program to add this feature. But some others cite MSN Messenger to be the first webcam chat available to install.

The beginning of the videochat

The beginning of the videochat feature was in early 2000s. MSN Messenger was one of the first programs to allow its users to have videochat.

At this time, the video quality was very poor, and a low frame rate was typical. The speed of the internet connection was a few kilobytes per second, so that was expected. One could expect 12 frames per second in the videochat session and that was just fine.

Do you remember downloading a file with the speed at 5Kb/s? Do you remember having the telephone line busy for hours while you were connected?

If you remember any of the above, you are probably over 30 years old. That was a great time for us!

For some years the only way to communicate in a videochat session was by adding an user to your friend list in MSN, AOL or ICQ. There were the most common videochat apps, as we call them today.

So, you’d need to know the users id before you could videocall them. No strangers allowed there!

Changes in the videochat are coming

In 2003, Skype was launched officially, and its usage grew slowly during the following years. Some years later, in 2011 Microsoft acquired Skype. Two years after that, MSN Messenger was discontinued and replaced with Skype for all users. Those were very bad news for everybody, as we liked MSN Messenger.

Hey, we are going fast here, aren’t we?

Let’s get back to late 2008, when the first online videochat was launched. As we’ve previously talked, some cite the creation to the first random videochat to Omegle, while others cite another website that we are not mentioning here for trademark reasons. You should know what website we are talking about, some roulette website, though.

In the website archive.org Omegle was first cached in March, 2009. The other videochat site is cached first in November 2009. So we assume that Omegle was the first to come up with the random videochat idea.

Video Chat by countries listed in this page

The rapid increase of users in the random videochats

As we said, since the first release of the random videochat by Omegle, some other websites copied the function. Therefore, the random video chat feature experienced an increase in its use since 2010 until now.

Some other sites copied and even improved the functionality of videochat, such as quierochat.com, one of our parent websites.

QuieroChat was the first website to use the Google Translation API to add instant translation feature to its videochats. This way, any user from all around the world was able to chat and communicate in its own language with another user from another country.

This feature was copied as well by many webchats, text or video.

Almost all the websites offering this feature discontinued the service as Google started charging for their translation services. Thus, making the service financially unaffordable for the website owners.

Decline of users in some platforms

There has been a decline in the use of certain websites in favor of others, which bring together the largest number of users connected to the same server.

This is the case of Omegle and other sites that have lost many of theirs users during the years in favor of a few ones.

The main reason is that these sites were unmodified for a long time, not bringing new features for their users and their users looking for new features to enjoy the videochats.

And increase of users in another websites

This is the case of ChatRandom, which seems to have over 20 thousands users connected at any time. There are known peaks of over 50.000 users which is greater than other websites combined.

ChatRandom has experiences a dramatic surge of users because it has created several platforms aimed at a specific audience. In fact, there are several websites for gay video chat, lesbian video chat and other genres.

Some other websites lack this specific feature and users are not able to search for specific gender in the videochats. Although it is quite easy to develop this feature, it was not added to may websites until today.

If your users demand anything, you better implement the feature to make your users happy.

Basics of the videochat

Use a webcam with a lot of ambient light. Be assured that you can see it well and you are seen well. This is very important as it would be your first chance to be seen. Try to cause a good first impression!
Be educated with people. Like if you were in school, high school, or work. In the chat there are people just like you, be educated with them. Your attitude will pay off!
Be original, dress differently, wear a mask, put on a costume. All sorts of original things that will surely generate a lot of laughs among the users.
Try to engage in interesting conversations with people to get to know them better. Video chat always helps, but do not forget that it’s about having a fun time and enriching your life with new friendships.