Stranger and stranger, just a webcam away

Midnight. Home alone. No friends, no lover, or even a cat to keep you company. But just go on the internet, connect your webcam and immediately you have company - tens of thousands of people, ranging from cute young guys to E.T.

Welcome to Chatroulette, a cyber craze that has already captured the hearts of young people in the West since its launch in November.

Created by an 18-year-old Russian high school drop-out, Andrey Ternovskiy, who featured in the latest issue of The New Yorker, in February the website was attracting an estimated 35,000 users at a time. According to Web information company Alexa, nearly three million people have visited Chatroulette.com in the past three months, with 20.7 per cent from the US, 11.4 per cent from France, 9.7 per cent from Germany and 2.9 per cent in China.

The website simply pairs up strangers on a free live webcam online chat on a strictly random basis.

The beauty of Chatroulette is that, if you are fed up with your chat partner, you can leave at any time by clicking the 'next' button. The system instantly allocates you another chat partner. You do not have to fake an excuse to sugar-coat the harsh line of 'I don't like you. Bye bye!'

Having read about the popularity of Chatroulette in the West, it's time to try it out first hand.