Is it worth trying to convince you that it’s impossible to express your emotions sincerely and effectively in plain text? Some may disagree, but we’re convinced that a true emotional connection between people can form only when they see and hear each other. Regular texting simply does not lead to such connections.
In the past, when the internet was quite slow and not particularly stable, people simply did not have much choice how to get acquainted and communicate from a distance. At that time texting was the best option. But now those times are in the past. Technology allows you to communicate easily via video with people almost anywhere in the world where there’s an internet connection. So it shouldn’t be surprising that video communication is now coming out on top.
How random video chat flooded the internet and why it is now experiencing a real renaissance
The history of video chat began in 2009, when Omegle and Chatroulette were launched. At that time, it was something completely new, offering users the opportunity to meet people from different parts of the world, communicate via video and simply have a good time. The random chance and surprise encounters attracted a lot of attention. And they still do!
Omegle and Chatroulette spawned many successors that offered even wider and more diverse features.
- Azar — not just an online video chat, but also quite a useful messenger. Using it, you can chat face-to-face, conduct or view streams to a large audience, give or receive virtual gifts, view the profiles of other users, chat and much more.
- CooMeet — a versatile web chat service, the main advantage of which is an error-free gender filter. Thanks to that, the system is able to connect men with just girls and doesn’t make mistakes. Random video chat CooMeet has great iOS and Android apps, a built-in message translator, and even its own affiliate program.
- Facebuzz — a video streaming service for adults, on which a significant part of the broadcasts are very explicit. Therefore, only users over the age of 18 are allowed to use it.
- Chat Alternative — a decent video chat app with gender and geographic filters, and a built-in message translator. This is a good option for those who need a simple, clear and easy to use web chat app for interesting dating.
- Fruzo — a random video chat and dating social network with a gender filter. One of the advantages of this platform is the ability to add users to your friends list so as not to lose them, and be able to return to the conversation at any time.
Random video chat sites saw a huge wave of popularity in 2009-2010, when they just started to appear. A second big wave happened against the backdrop of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and continues to this day.
But it’s not just random video chat sites that are suitable for video communication with new people…
Popular dating apps and sites that have already implemented video chat features
We advise that you briefly consider several well-known dating services that already have built-in video chat features and where you can comfortably chat with new people via video.
- Match — one of the first large scale online dating services, which remains very popular to this day.
One of the major recent additions to the Match site is the Vibe Check video chat feature. Thanks to this, users can conveniently communicate via video without any time limits. More importantly, this feature is free for all Match users. This is a significant advantage over many other apps. For example, on Tinder, both users must have a premium account to video chat.
- Luxy — an app for “elite” dating. There are of course many successful and wealthy single people looking for their love.
At the moment, a video chat function is still not implemented here. But the developers are actively working on improving their service and regularly introduce new features. Therefore, we’re sure that in the foreseeable future Luxy will grant us high quality video chat with a large number of interesting people.
- Hinge — a unique dating service in its own way, which uses the Nobel Prize-winning Gale-Shapley algorithm to select matches. According to the developers, this is one of the best algorithms in existence.
Hinge video chat is integrated directly into the built-in messenger. You just press the video call icon while chatting with a person and make a call. In addition, you can communicate exclusively by voice. To do this, just hit the phone icon. Even if the user misses the call, they will see a notification with the time you called them.
- Bumble — a hugely popular dating app, where girls always make the first move, and the options for men to initiate contact are quite limited.
On Bumble, the video chat function is organized in a similar way to Hinge. When talking to a person in text chat, you can tap the video camera icon to make a video call. If the call is missed, your chat partner will receive a notification indicating the time you called them.
- Badoo — another extremely popular dating app, a place where people can meet and form new friendships and fall in love. This site has long been popular in Europe and other countries. It has a simple and pleasant interface, a quite extensive feature set and an active user base.
The video chat feature on Badoo has been around since 2017 and is quite popular. At the same time, it is impossible to call any user you like immediately. In order for video chat with them to become available, you must chat for a while by text. And only after that will it be possible to make a video call. Some do not like such restrictions for obvious reasons, but the restriction is there for good reasons.
- Snack — an online dating platform for the younger generation of zoomers. As the developers themselves say, this is a kind of combination of the Hinge and TikTok apps. Users can fill their profiles with short videos — in a sense, signature cards and bright mini-presentations. A truly unique and innovative solution.
A significant part of communication in Snack is tied to video — texting is more likely to be a rarity, but video calls are common. You can chat via video with any user with whom you have mutual attraction and a match has taken place. Or you can just chat in a text chat if this format seems more convenient to you.
This isn’t even close to a complete list of popular online dating services that already have built-in web chat in one form or another, and their number is only increasing every year. Maybe in just a couple more years, there will be no dating platforms at all without video chat. Or those that remain will be unknown sites that have simply ceased development. They probably won’t interest you much.
Video chat is the future of online dating
The web dating industry is rapidly evolving and changing right before our eyes. A few years ago, these services were primitive and offered only pretty simple pair matching algorithms. But now these are real multimedia services that can not only find interesting matches for you, but also give you the opportunity to easily communicate with people all over the world.
It’s strange that popular dating sites and apps only seriously engaged with the introduction of video chat functions relatively recently. Yes,it’s likely the Coronavirus was the impetus. If not for the pandemic, we might have had to wait even longer.
Be that as it may, today most dating apps and sites have built-in video chats. So, you can easily meet and communicate with new people every day. We recommend that if for some reason you’ve been ignoring the video dating format so far, you give it a try now. You’ll surely like it!