Sync Comm

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Web Chats

Introduction

Web based chats are one of the fastest areas of growth for synchronous text communications. The purpose of this brief introduction to Web chats is to make students aware of the existence of Web based chats, their features and relationship to IRC. This is for quick informational purposes only and does not require the download of software or testing of any of the Web based chat services.

The communication software can be a Web browser plugin, Java applet, or IRC client. Many provide a simpler front-end interface to a back-end IRC server. Most provide free clients, but require connection to a remote server. There are some that offer server software, but they are generally commercial sites. The free sites often display advertising, and some offer the option to create public and private chat rooms at the remote servers.

One of the most popular plugin Web chats is ;-)ichat. ;-)ichat provides client software for most platforms and has been adopted by many leading Internet companies, (Netscape, Yahoo!, etc.). It provides many options beyond IRC, such as HTML messages, avatars, emotions, emoticons, room navigation, auto sound file playing, etc.

Chat City

One of the more robust Java chat applets is located at Chat City. The Java chat applet downloads automatically and requires no installation, unlike ;-)ichat. It provides instructions for embedding it in your Web pages and for creating a private chat room. A calendar of special daily chats are scheduled in addition to the common topical chats. It also features bulletin board like discussion boards for asynchronous conferencing. Possibly the most important feature of the Chat City chats is that they are hosted, moderated chats with close attention paid to the content of the discussions.

Suggested Optional Activities

Download or use the ;-)ichat browser plugin to connect to the Yahoo! Chat site and join a chat.

Further Study / Resources

Web Chat Resources