Is ChatRoulette the Future of the Internet or Its Distant Past?

Eh. Not sure it's "the future" in its current form. While clicking next a few times (read: few hundred) is strangely addicting, a session feels like a bad night at the poker table - empty, wasteful, and morally depraved.

Without filters or some kind of account system it will remain mostly a diversion for bored and lonely youngins and pervs. I think random video chat has a place in the wider world of normal people (e.g., foreign language learning), but not in this form.

Why the extremes of 'the past' or 'the future'? Can't it just be 'a part' of the internet?

Wouldn't get the upvotes/clickthroughs.

Everything has to be revolutionary(git) or disastrous(cuil) or outrageous(buzz) now.

What makes you think hyperbole in news started recently?

What I want to know is why ChatRoulette hasn't converted completely into a gay hookup site yet.

Because gay culture is 10 years ahead of everyone else in using the internet to hook up. This ap is already 7 years obsolete in gay internet years.

ChatRoulette was also discussed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1123314