| A program that
lets you "talk" to your friends in real time over the Internet, even
if they live in London while you're hanging out in New York. Most
often you type back and forth, although some programs let you
literally use your voice.
A chat room is a Web site, part
of a Web site, or part of an online service such as America Online,
that provides a venue for communities of users with a common
interest to communicate in real time. Forums and discussion groups,
in comparison, allow users to post messages but don't have the
capacity for interactive messaging. Most chat rooms don't require
users to have any special software; those that do, such as Internet
Relay Chat (IRC) allow users to download it from the Internet.
Chat room users register for
the chat room of their choice, choose a user name and password, and
log into a particular room (most sites have multiple chat rooms).
Inside the chat room, generally there is a list of the people
currently online, who also are alerted that another person has
entered the chat room. To chat, users type a message into a text
box. The message is almost immediately visible in the larger
communal message area and other users respond. Users can enter chat
rooms and read messages without sending any, a practice known as
lurking. |
