Zoom-in Online

I appreciate anonymity.

I religiously read the "missed connections" on Craigslist, anonymous is my favorite author and sometimes I have dreams of burning all forms of my identification and pulling a Christopher McCandless, minus the dying part.

I find the idea of remaining nameless sort of romantic.

On that note, I think Omegle is one of the creepiest/strangest/most intriguing things I have experienced in my entire life.

A fairly simple idea, Omegle randomly pairs up users and sets up a chat room for them to talk. Nothing too wild, nothing too crazy, but for some reason it's a little disarming conversing with someone who is a complete mystery.

If you have yet to Omegle, please do so now.

Welcome back! Now contain this feeling that you have about the site and it's concept and read further. 

In hopes to mildly appease my confusion I left feedback for the site's creator and like all good techies, Leif K-Brooks got back to me within 30 mins.

Facts about Leif and Omegle:
1. He's 18. (Yup, he's one of those.)
2. The site has only been up for less than a week.
3. It's written in Python, using the Twisted networking library and is hosted on a medium-end Linode virtual private server. (All this information is straight from 18-year old Leif. I will never understand what was said. Ever.)
4. It's hosting is funded by the ads of another of Leif's sites eCritter which he wrote when he was 11. (I also don't really know what goes on there either.)

But as easy as it would be for me just to make quips about Omegle and how it's inception is signaling the inevitable end of the sane world, Leif K-Brooks impressed me. Granted, I'm impressed by the video of the "I love you" dog, but Leif was non-assuming, articulate and informative.

When I asked him why he created Omegle and what was he hoping to accomplish with the site he said:

"Part of [creating Omegle] was just for the fun of programming it, but I'm also hoping to address a need. Most people associate with each other based on common interests. That's the ind [sic] of interaction that Twitter and Facebook are normally used for. And that's great -- there's nothing at all wrong with wanting to have something in common with your friends -- but if it's the only kind of social interaction there is, people's lives will be a bit stagnant. It's hard to learn new things from someone who's just like you. So my goal with Omegle is to bring together people who maybe aren't all that similar, and let them talk in an anonymous, safe environment."

He went on to say that he's still working out the details of how to keep the focus on the longevity of the site rather than the novelty. Even though he candidly said that he doesn't really see Omegle taking off to great heights. Regardless, he did admit that if the site could pull in big numbers he would consider "pulling a Zuckerberg" and ditching out of college.

Decent kid, still creepy site. Omegled eight times today.

Send your thoughts, experiences and best Omegles to TSalalac@magnetmediafilms.com

Screw people, I've got Adobe CS4 and that's all anyone needs.