It seems the 17-year-old truant who created Chatroulette has applied for a visa. The youngster, be he lucky or brilliant, has indicated he might want to transition to the American scene at some time in the near future. With all the media attention he and his service have received and the explosion of traffic – and monetization potential – on his site, his application further opens the can of worms we’ve been discussing tonight: Where’s the best place to raise your startup? Sponsor In December 2009, Chatroulette had 500 users. Today, just four months later, the site sees 1.5 million daily visitors. That statistic alone is enough to inspire investors to beat down the door of its creator, Russian high school student Andrey Ternovskiy. But what’s much more interesting to many is the mechanics of the site itself. “It’s video 4chan. Unbeatable formula,” said Muhammad Saleem , considered by many to be an excellent authority on engineering virality. Others have called it “brilliant,” “the purest form” of the Internet and its userbase, and “a great way to kill time,” one of the most common uses of the social web. I’ve frequently described it as a box of game pieces with no rules. Users are invited to create any kind of experience they choose given a simple set of constraints. It’s inherently viral, addictive, imaginative and essentially human. Here’s the rub: The site is currently unfinanced and non-commercial. The site’s creator, a teenaged school kid, has been placed at the crux of nationalistic, capitalistic and technological debates by being asked to choose between Russian financing and a yellow brick road to Silicon Valley. According to one site, the Russian investors involved are seeking to “break the American hegemony in cyberspace – an ambitious plan, particularly as the United States is home to many of the market leaders in the Internet economy. “The combined value of Google, Microsoft and Facebook amounts to roughly $500 billion, or about a third of the Russian economy’s annual output. So if Russia – which has more than 50 million Internet users and boasts one of the fastest-growing markets – hopes to catch up, then it will need to keep talents like Ternovskiy at home.” The Russian investors who have contacted Ternovskiy also invest in Facebook and Zynga; clearly, they have an eye for social virality and profit and see a great deal of potential in Chatroulette. But Ternovskiy, a longtime hacker, dreams of founding a Silicon Valley startup of his own. Will this young man reinforce the American idiom of Silicon Valley by relocating his seemingly overnight success to the Bay Area? Or will he prove that the startup economy is truly becoming global by accepting Russian financing and remaining in north Moscow? A more interesting question: Can Ternovskiy sustain this wild success? Or has he simply become lucky with Chatroulette? Let us know your opinions in the comments. Discuss

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For many years, I have been famously (or notoriously) anti-Silicon Valley . There’s nothing wrong with the place in iteself; what I detested was the snobbish notion that the Valley is the de facto or “best” place to run a startup or be involved with the tech world. I’m now forced to eat my words as my hetero life mate and I prepare to move into a Burlingame apartment conveniently located a few blocks away from the startup he’s now working at; I have to admit, living in the Bay Area has been amazing so far, in professional and personal terms. Still, if I were starting a company, would I move from Omaha or Nashville or Boulder to come to the Valley? Would you? Sponsor UPDATE: It seems the Chatroulette creator is having the same dilemma . How’s that for unwitting timeliness? Back when I started the Never Mind the Valley series , I was fascinated by communities such as Boulder and Los Angeles. The tech scenes are smaller and more easily navigable, and most people are willing and excited to collaborate. When contrasting these areas with the SF Bay Area, NorCal seemed vast, cold, inflated and self-important by comparison. For months, I railed, “You don’t have to be in the Valley to have a successful startup!” Examples of this abound, from Austin’s Gowalla to L.A.’s Mahalo to the dozens of incubated and accelerated teams in cities all over the country. However, on moving to San Francisco, I quickly learned a few of the benefits of being a startup in the Valley. Everything loves much faster. You have more access to more capital. The depth, breadth and strength of the developer pool is unparalleled. Everyone has a fairly public track record. Yes, it can be an insular and self-aggrandizing little echo chamber of Mutual Admiration Society nitwits at times, but I’m no longer saying that the benefits don’t outweigh the cost. Ah, yes – the cost. Living in the Bay Area is, to employ a common NorCalism, hella expensive. Salaries are higher, real estate is more scarce and more spendy, the overall cost of living borders on obscene unless you’re used to, say, Tokyo. But again, perhaps for many startups situated here, the benefits outweigh the financial costs, as well. So, I’m left wondering exactly what alchemy makes the benefits worth all the costs for a startup. I’ve been asked by a few companies about transitioning from other states and even other countries to the Valley, and my advice has tended to be a mixed bag lately. I’m interested to hear from startups living in and outside of Silicon Valley: When do you think being in SF is worth it, and when is it wiser to stay put? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Discuss

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You’ve probably heard that ReadWriteWeb has just announced the 2010 Mobile Summit , which – judging by last fall’s real-time web summit – is going to be a bang-up event. (With Kaliya Hamlin facilitating, how can it be otherwise?) This one’s in honor of the summit… and in honor of all of us for whom ubiquitous connectivity means you’re never really 100% present in physical space. Sponsor Oh, sure, it has its drawbacks – the car accidents, the walking into parking meters, the wedding that got called off because you just had to Twitpic a photo of the moment to your tweeps, which was awkward as you were the bride. But let’s admit it: We’re part of the hive mind, and we’re proud of it. Onward to Mountain View ! More Noise to Signal. Discuss

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