Brand Mix

So, for those who have just given up trying to keep up, let's start with: What's Chatroulette? According to the site listing, Chatroulette is "blablablabla" which pretty much sums it up. It's a website that pairs random people together for webcam-based conversations. Whenever you want, you can just leave one chat and start another. Such an unappealing concept from my point of view, until "Merton" came along and did this:



That piece of brilliance has been viewed almost 1 million times on YouTube. Not long after that video, Ben Folds performed a Merton tribute live before an audience at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina.



Notice the similarity between Ben Folds and Merton? So did lots of people and, ever since, there's been speculation about whether they are in fact one and the same. (Peter Kafka posted about this important question earlier in the week.)

As of the time of writing, I haven't seen anything that definitively answers this great mystery of our time. But now we have two great examples of Chatroulette's possibilities, which is two more than I ever thought possible. (And thanks to "Bam" for suggesting an answer to my home office dilemma.)