8 comments

• 

  Brent Ashley

  1 year ago

  You're right - it's never been that hard, and it's practically trivial these days with advanced Ajax toolkits.
  
  I first built it as a proof of concept with less than 100 lines of code on client and server and then expanded it into a free service that's been running virtually unchanged since 2002 - Tim Aiello continues to host it at http://www.blogchat.com. While there are a few long-time users, most people try it out and tire of it after a few days.
  
  There are companies who have extended the idea to provide live product support, and I've used that on vendor sites a few times to good effect. I have never seen the concept gain any real traction outside of that realm, however.
  
  Providing an embedded chat room for blogs, while a neat gimmick, has no supportable business model that I've been able to discover. It might provide minimal incremental value to a hosted blogging service, but nobody's going to pay for it when there are so many free and simple alternatives whose features are "good enough" (such as a shoutbox, one of many examples).
  reply
• 

  mathewi

  1 year ago

  Yeah, I agree Brent. I just don't see it having any kind of compelling
  advantage -- or a great business model, for that matter, even if Meebo does
  do distributed advertising. It makes sense for live support and that kind
  of thing, as you mentioned, but other than that it's a pretty forgettable
  feature, IMHO.
  reply
• 

  Aidan Henry

  1 year ago

  I would have to agree. I can use my IM client to chat with contacts. Chatting with random visitors who just happen to be on the same website at the same time as me is likely to provide very little value.
  
  Cheers,
  Aidan
  www.MappingTheWeb.com
  reply
• 

  Mark Dykeman

  1 year ago

  Wouldn't you say that Twitter is making the chatroom obsolete?
  reply
• 

  mathewi

  1 year ago

  Actually, I was going to make that point as well, Mark -- but I thought the
  post was getting too long as it was. I think you're right though, it kind
  of is -- when it isn't down, that is :-)
  reply
• 

  Mark Dykeman

  1 year ago

  Ironically, as I read your comment, your Twitter word balloon at the right says "Sorry, cannot load messages"...
  reply
• 

  johnstarta

  1 year ago

  Everything old is new again. Clothes, toys, and now the web.
  
  The primary market for the embedded chat rooms are the Lifecasters that want to "nurture" a community for themselves right on their websites.
  reply
• 

  Metin Arslan

  2 weeks ago

  The primary market for the embedded chat rooms are the Lifecasters that want to "nurture" a community for themselves right on their websites.
  reply