- Today's Internet chat rooms evolved from the Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and MUDs (Multi-User Domains) developed in the late 1980s and 1990s. In these systems, you could chat either in non-real time posts or in text-based game environments. As connectivity capability and computing hardware and software have evolved, so has the ability to chat online. Today most chat forums offer the ability to talk to one or many users with text, voice and video. Some Internet chat clients now combin Voice Over IP (VOIP) technology and allow you to connect from your computer to friends' mobile phones through text to chat or voice directly to the mobile phone.
- Chat rooms are generically used to refer to any application that allows you to communicate in real-time whether by text, video or a combination of these means in varying environments. The precursor to social networking sites for collaborative discussions for work and fun, they are still in heavy use today for exchange of information.
- Originally, text-based chat systems were the only kind available for use. Internet Relay Chat which is a client to client (or user to user) variant was the most popular for several years, but has given way mostly to Instant Messaging (IM). IM has the ability to allow one or many to communicate with small to large groups using text, voice and video. Yahoo and AOL have two of the most widely used client applications with numerous others on the market. The goal of industry recently has been to make the chat client agnostic so that the end-user does not need to establish multiple chat accounts across numerous companies. Instead, you can subscribe to MSN, for example, and use that user ID to chat with friends on Yahoo, Google, AOL and other companies.
- Chat room features have evolved significantly over the last decade. If using a stand-alone chat client, you now have the option to allow others to see your webcam picture, listen to audio and type messages in near-real time. Additionally, file sharing can be enabled to share common work documents at a virtual meeting or favorite music songs amongst friends. Additionally, multi-player, networked video games have taken on features of chat clients. The now enable multiple users to communicate through varying types of chat. The players can be in disparate locations and play a game towards a common goal. Today's social networking sites also have incorporated aspects of chat clients to keep you from having to leave your favorite site to communicate with friends and family.
- Take into account a few things when choosing a chat client. Does your current email service or ISP already have a chat client option that you can use without having to create another account with a different company? If so, does this service have the functionality that you require of a chat client. If your children will be using the chat client does it provide parental controls? What is the bandwidth requirement of the chat client? If you want to video chat is the chat client interoperable with multiple domains?
