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Information about Web Chat Site

Web chat sites are websites that allow users to communicate in real time using easily accessible web interfaces. They are types of internet chat rooms distinguished by their simplicity and accessibility to users who do not wish to take the time to install and learn to use specialized chat software. Unlike other user-oriented web sites, such as discussion forums and social networking sites, web chat sites typically do not require registration. This trait allows them to offer users instantaneous access, but also generates an extremely high level of competition between chat sites, as it allows users to switch between them with ease. There are hundreds of chat sites, which actively compete with each other to the point where some of the more popular ones actually censor the names of other chat sites, preventing users from referring each other to competing chats.

History and Technology

Individual chat sites rise and fall in popularity pretty quickly, but the history of web chat is characterized more broadly by trends in underlying web technologies. The first chat sites featured simple interfaces made from dynamically generated HTML pages. The use of HTML allowed sites to incorporate fonts, colors, links, and images into their interfaces, giving them a more modern hypermedia feel, which was an advantage over older, but more established text-based chat services like IRC. The biggest downside to HTML chat was in its interactivity. Every message sent to an HTML chat required a form submission and subsequent page load, which meant that there was a waiting period between the time a user could send one message and the time they could begin to type the next one. Receiving messages also required frequent page reloads, and could lead to delays, page flicker, and distracting browser activity. For these reasons HTML chats have largely fallen out of use today, although some of the older HTML chat sites, [1] still remain active.

In 1995, Java applet technology was introduced into popular web browsers. Java's well developed network and graphical capabilities made it an ideal platform for creating chat interfaces, some of which are in use on the most popular web chat sites today. Commonly used Java chat interfaces include Chatspace, Conference Room, DigiChat, and PJIRC. While there are some drawbacks associated with Java chats such as long initial page loading times, the technology has worked well and scaled well, and today there are more websites using Java chat interfaces than any other kind.

Newer web technologies, such as Ajax and Flash, have been used as the basis for some new chat systems. They are hindered by incomplete support for networking in the underlying Javascript and Actionscript programming languages, and can't make use of efficient chat protocols. However, the trendiness of these technologies, as well as their strong support for graphical and usability features mean it is likely that these types of chats will become more widespread.

Comparison with other Chat Services

Web chatting is only a small part of the world of online chat. Web chats do not have the same network effects as chat services like instant messengers, which become more useful as they become more popular. Smaller, less busy chats can actually have more appeal to users than crowded, popular ones. Really, the only unique feature web chat sites offer is instant accessibility. And in an internet where there are so many other choices for real-time social interaction: internet relay chat networks, instant messenger services, online games, and virtual worlds, web sites devoted to simple text-based chat remain a small, but singular phenonemon.

See also

References

External Links

A chat room or chatroom is a term used primarily by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology ranging from real-time online chat over instant messaging and online forums to
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HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)

File extension: .html, .htm
MIME type: text/html
Type code: TEXT
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Hypermedia is a term created by Ted Nelson, and used in his 1965 article Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate .
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Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group (many-to-many) communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication and data transfers via private message.
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A Java applet is an applet delivered in the form of Java bytecode. Java applets can run in a Web browser using a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), or in Sun's AppletViewer, a stand-alone tool for testing applets.
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Chatspace is a leading real-time chat platform built on the Internet Relay Chat protocol. It is in wide use, particularly among large companies needing to collaborate or offer real-time chat solutions on their website.
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PJIRC is an open source Java applet IRC client. It can be embedded in a web page and used on any web browser that supports the Java programming language. It is great for those who do not care to download a client.
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“AJAX” redirects here. For other uses, see Ajax.
Ajax, or AJAX, (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) is a web development technique used for creating interactive web applications.
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Player support only: GNU/Linux (Intel, x86) and Solaris (Intel, SPARC) [1]
Genre: Multimedia Content Creator
License: Proprietary EULA
Website: Adobe.com's Flash page Adobe Flash, or simply Flash
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JavaScript
Paradigm: multi-paradigm
Appeared in: 1995
Designed by: Brendan Eich
Developer: Netscape Communications Corporation, Mozilla Foundation
Typing discipline: dynamic, weak, duck
Major implementations: SpiderMonkey, Rhino, KJS, JavaScriptCore
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a major revision or rewrite and needs further review. You can help!

ActionScript
Paradigm: Object-oriented
Appeared in: 1998
Designed by: Gary Grossman
Developer: Macromedia, Adobe Systems
Latest release: 3.
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weasel words.
* It does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by citing reliable sources.
* It may require general cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
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A network effect is a characteristic that causes a good or service to have a value to a potential customer which depends on the number of other customers who own the good or are users of the service.
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Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet.
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Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group (many-to-many) communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication and data transfers via private message.
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Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet.
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Online games refer to video games that are played over some form of computer network, most commonly the Internet. The expansion of online gaming has reflected the overall expansion of computer networks from small local networks to the Internet and the growth of Internet access
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A virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. This habitation usually is represented in the form of two or three-dimensional graphical representations of humanoids (or other graphical or text-based avatars).
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A chat room or chatroom is a term used primarily by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology ranging from real-time online chat over instant messaging and online forums to
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Hosted Chat or "Chat As Service" is an ASP (Application Service Provider) model text chat service that boasts capabilities such as having multiple instances of a chat with different configurations being distributed among websites, blogs, discussion groups, and virtually every other
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Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group (many-to-many) communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication and data transfers via private message.
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weasel words.
* It does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by citing reliable sources.
* It may require general cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
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Webcams are small cameras, (usually, though not always, video cameras) whose images can be accessed using the World Wide Web, instant messaging, or a PC video conferencing application.
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Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as dmoz (from directory.mozilla.org, its original domain name), is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links owned by Netscape that is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.
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