Chat Rooms - Which chatroom should i put on my site?

[kindred1]

I have a new website up,the traffic to my site has been tremendous,i never thought id get so many hits so soon.
I have a forum,and alot of my members are wanting a chat room to be part of my site,so they can chat with each other.

My question is,what kind of chat room software is out there for me to implement it into my webpage.Id like something that is great looking and easy to customize and easy to use.

Any help in finding some web based chat software would be great.free would be even better!thanks

[Grumpus]

In general, people don't tend to post or chat unless the topic (introduced by someone else, for the most part) is something that illicits some sort of emotional response from them. Otherwise, they'll lurk and lurk and lurk (if there's stuff to keep them interested in lurking), until the day comes when that topic fires them up to first post. Once the ice is broken, they tend to keep posting.

In reality, it can take years to get a forum going - if it ever takes off at all. My site is averaging 2500 unique visitors a day and the forum gets about 200-400 of them poking around, yet it averages but one or two posts per week (excluding the news items that I post when something interesting comes across). That's after 8 months of trying everything from creating multiple personae and talking amongst myself to offering free movie posters to people who contribute the most over a period of time.

Now, imagine if you will, a chat room. Someone pops in, sees no one there, and then leaves. Or, if someone's there, one of two things is likely to happen. 1) They sit and wait for the other to speak (by now, the first person has another browser window open and is doing something else), or 2) The conversation goes, "Hello?" "Hi!" "Anything going on?" "Nope." "Alright, I just had a minute and thought I'd check this out. I'll catch you later!" "Laterz!"

At least with a forum, if someone posts something - anything - it's there for the next guy who pops in (even if it's a month later).

Trust me, traffic does not, by any means, that you can do a chat room. You'll have to organize events, promote those events, and if that's what you are looking to do, then go ahead, but I really suggest against it unless you have lots of extra time and energy.

If, on the other hand, you've got some users who want to plant themselves, you might be able to get it going.

G.

[kindred1]

thanks.
ive had almost 100 emails asking for a chat room.Can you reccommend a few free ones that are high quality.my forum already has 150 registerd users,and averaging about 30 new topics a day.
anyone?

Its a WWE wresters website,so people want to chat when the shows are on television and when PPV's air.I really wont have to promote anything.These people live for chatting about their favorite star.lol!

[Crazy_Fool]

chat rooms can be great, but they can also be a real pain when you get idiots into cybers*x or adults arguing like 2 year olds and making complaints to the site owners and threatening legal action etc etc etc. you cannot avoid this. whatever you do, make sure you set good, clear rules on expected behaviour - post them prominently in the forums - and arrange for a few sensible people to act as managers / controllers / moderators to be around as often as possible to kick people who cause trouble, and ensure the system keeps them out as far as possible (ie, members only with kick and ban system).

there are a few free chat room scripts floating around, but i can't remember the names or where they came from. i used an ASP one a couple of years ago, but it was very basic and would have needed a lot of new code to allow acceptable levels of control. it may have been updated now so may be worth searching for.

there is also a java based IRC client available from [eirc.sourceforge.net...] - it's ok, but nothing special

you might like to try an MSN chat room. you get quite good levels of control and you can always download a bot to maintain control when no "hammers" are in the room. IRCdominator is a good bot.

MSN chat rooms also have the advantage of bringing more traffic to your site. MSN chat is a heavily used system and you can get plenty of newcomers to the room. if you like the newcomers, you can invite them to visit your site (people will expect regular MSN chat rooms to have a community). you can use IRCdominator to post short messages to the room at regular intervals - these might be welcome messages with the rules of the room (no swearing, play nicely etc), or invitations to join your "community" (forums).