This page researched and written by Ilene
Hoffman
Live chat on a web site enables users to talk to each other immediately. This is a great incentive for people to stay onsite, but can present a plethora of other little glitches.
Not all users like live chat, but those who do will spend hours online once they find people who have common interests and experiences. People like to connect with one another, and enjoy sharing stories and information on location and lifestyles
Glitches often can occur for the site owners though. For example, if you've advertised your site as a general audience site or appropriate for kid's and people chatting start cursing and/ or being sexual in the room, your rating falls by the wayside. (Plus you will hear about it in email.) Other little problems include inappropriate nick names, people selling items in your room, or folks who discover how to push others off the server. Rules for your chat room must be clear, and agreed to by all participants, which also reduces some of the potential problems.
Moderating a chat also reduces the problems, but this means that a staff person must be active in the room. Volunteers can often be found to act as moderators, but they need to be trained in what to do when problems arise, how to answer questions about your site, and probably how to use the Internet in general.
| Be Seen | From the site: Customizable Internet messaging system. Talk to your customers, meet friends, or simply a virtual place to visit relatives. Add chat to your website or just get a room to use as a free standing web destination. No programming required. Easy setup and simple to maintain. Customizable to your look and feel, and totally free. Free homepages. Personal comments: When you create room, you choose the general topic and rating for the room. They don't allow XXX and adults sites to set up rooms. Icons associated with nicks is nice, but screen redraws interrupt the chat. Icons used in chat are cute. I'm not a fan of chat clients where you can't chat easily without constantly having to adjust the scroll bar. |
 Chat @ Talk City |
You can set up a chat room on Talk City's servers and link to it via html. Users can use Internet Relay Chat software or Talk City's own Java chat client, EzTalk. Talk City's greatest asset is that there is staff on duty 24 hours a day which can be called upon to help with problem users in a room. They have a Code of Conduct everyone must follow. They also have free homepages. |
| BIAP Chat | Chat software for Mac server; a W*API plug-in. $129 for single-user license. |
| ConferWeb | Mac-based conference software; Postcard-ware license for education and non-profit use. Contact Brian Johnson for information/costs on using it in a commercial setting. |
| Lasso Chat | Scroll down to Discussion Forum and Chat section and you'll find a Shockwave/Lasso based chat server solution by Andrew White. Freeware! |
