Webcam whiz kids fight obscene chat

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Two teenagers with Austin ties say their new web application will revolutionize the way people meet and collaborate on the Internet.

Their new site WebCamWindow launches this week, hoping to clean up the conversations between people who meet randomly online.

When Russian-based website ChatRoulette launched last year it quickly became a sensation around the world. That site lets people have face-to-face conversations with other webcam users, chosen at random. It was a pretty popular idea, with just one problem, pornography.

"Too many people getting on the site and showing you things you don't wanna see ... things that nobody really wants to see," said WebCamWindow developer Alex Smith, 18.

"Typically, as we find with any new technology, criminals, or in this particular case, perverts, find a way to use it to meet their needs as well," said FBI agent Colleen Moss.

Chat Roulette quickly became infested with people acting inappropriately, turning off many users who liked the idea of random web chats in theory, but not in practice.

Now Smith and his fellow 18-year-old friend, David Weiser, say they've got the secret to fix that.

"It's random video, with content filtering," said Smith, who grew up in Austin but now lives in Atlanta. "So during the conversation, you won't see any inappropriate content, we've been able to filter all that out."

Smith and Weiser, who lives in Austin now, spent the last 6 months coding and developing the technology for WebCamWindow. Now they're ready to share their work with the world, predicting it will take social networking to the next level.

"Facebook is about keeping in touch with your current friends," said Smith. "WebCam Window is about making new friends."

"Say you're trying to find out ideas about a certain idea and you know there's people with those common interests," said Weiser. "You can kinda bounce ideas off each other and say 'I'm kinda thinking of this, what do you think?'  It connects people on the three essential steps of communication: your actual words, your tone of voice, and your body language. That's so incredibly important when you're trying to have an in-depth conversation."

Smith and Weiser say they've spent a few thousand bucks out of pocket developing and testing their filtering technology, now they hope to build a user-base and get some investors interested in growing the company.

They a say they're keeping the details of exactly how their content filtering works a secret until they unveil the live site in a private preview on Tuesday, December 7th.  They'll let users start registering profiles on WebCamWindow on Friday, December 10th.

"We want people to say: 'I use WebCam Window because I can collaborate, meet new people, and it's not offensive to me," said Weiser.