I developed this basic Omegle clone in 3 weeks, should I continue?
Hi all,
This is a side project on which I have been working for the last 3 weeks. My initial goal was to develop a small app to learn WebRTC and Progressive Web Apps (PWAs).
After 3 weeks, I have now a very basic Omegle like with some interesting features:
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it's based on HTML5 and WebRTC and all you need is a modern browser (no plugin needed)
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it has a responsive, mobile-first UI that can optionally be installed as an app (Progressive Web App)
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it's very fast, with a score of 99/100 on Google PageSpeed Insights!
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the backend technologies used should scale well
I need your feedback
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What do you think, should I continue developing it?
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Is there still room for another Omegle/Chatroulette/EmeraldChat alternative?
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Should I open-source it?
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If I continue to develop it, how could I attract my first users?
You can try it now, it's online at this address:
Do I need to do something to try it? It wouldn't do anything for me:
Mac OSX Sierra 10.12.6
Chrome: 68.0.3440.106 (Official Build) (64-bit)
I think that it's just because there is nobody on the website right now. Can you click on the play button and wait until someone else do the same?
It won't let me write a message, and when I click the menu on the side, it says "Not Implemented Yet".
I don't see any JS errors or anything.
Yes, it's normal, you can't send messages if you are not in a chat session, and the side menu is not yet implemented. This is not a finished app, only the text/video chat and the waiting queue are implemented.
Look for niche industries that could benefit from integrating Omegle like functionality to improve their business. Then try to sell your idea some businesses in that niche, maybe you'll get lucky and get a customer.
Then rinse and repeat that process until you have sales for your product, or use another strategy, or quit.
Are you sure you want to go down the Omegle/Chatroulette road? While there's always demand for a site that lets people expose themselves on cam to strangers, I'm not sure if it's a money making venture. (maybe you've got that figured out)
It sounds like you have the start of a tight video conferencing site. A service that lets people click-to-join a conference without installing anything sounds like money to me. 💰
I'm not sure about the Omegle/Chatroulette road. While I think that it's possible to make money with this kind of website, the chances of success for a new social app is low, unless you are a marketing genius. As you and Albertkim said, it's probably more realistic to look for a niche in b2b segment. What kind of collaborative task could benefit from a video chat?
I worked at a startup called eDial in the early '00s. At the time we were working on things like the ability to escalate any phone call to a conference call and click-to-call links. Conference calling and video conferencing still have the same basic problem in that it's a total pain in the ass to get everyone on. If you had a service that 'just worked' where people could click a link and be on the conference, period, that would be compelling. I realize that there's a lot of code between what you have now and what I'm describing, but if you've got the "it just works" part down, it might be something to look at.
It's an interesting idea. This already exists (appear.in, hubl.in, videolink2me.com), but the current solutions are not very business oriented.