Talk to strangers! "When you use Omegle, we pick another user at random and let you have a one-on-one chat with each other." [via waxy]
posted by Lush on Mar 30, 2009 - 147 comments

Have you been talking to God but get frustrated by the lack of feedback? Perfect for anyone who needs instant feedback from their Lord on which ever question they may have or someone who wants to shoot the divine breeze.
posted by Man_in_staysis on Feb 22, 2009 - 64 comments

Have you been salmoned? I just met a stranger from Denver via the process of salmoning, in which a chatbot initiates an unexpected two-way conversation between two (apparently random) nicks, giving them both aliases ending with "salmon," and leaving both parties confused. [more inside]
posted by Mo Nickels on Jun 14, 2008 - 26 comments

Before instant messaging, before chat groups, before IRC... there was Diversi-Dial. As the eighties became the nineties, the internet grew, and DDial died. Or did it? More than 20 years later--still at 300 baud and on an original Apple ][e--DDial lives on! [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Nov 29, 2007 - 38 comments

Are you Lonely? Curious? Depraved? Do you have questions that are just too risqué for AskMe? Live Hot Puppet Chat has got your answer. Yeah baby! Now you can experience sizzling raw, uh, pleasures. [NSFW]
posted by carsonb on Aug 4, 2007 - 13 comments

Boy is this cool. Mostly useless, completely awesome. Try flying.
posted by sneakin on Jun 8, 2007 - 68 comments

I Chat, Therefore I Am... Outputs from chatterbots A.L.I.C.E. and Jabberwacky are piped back in forth and have a conversation that goes from nonsensical one line to surreal the next. [via Digg and BB]
posted by daHIFI on May 18, 2007 - 40 comments

(flickr slideshow), subject of a documentary by Chris Marker. Enigmatic expression of Paris youth. Symbol of..? Les chats with copyright symbols have meaning for me. Flickr pool here.
posted by CCBC on Dec 26, 2006 - 7 comments

If chat rooms were real. [You Tube video, via Digg]
posted by punkfloyd on Dec 7, 2006 - 30 comments

Meet George -- 39, single, quirky sense of humour, looking for friends to chat with online. Last year, he won the Loebner Prize, to bots who can most successfully pass the Turing Test. More here from BBC. How long before we have our own Mefibots?
posted by amberglow on Sep 16, 2006 - 49 comments

Silly name, but fun all the same ... Free web (2.0, natch) chat site that allows users to search for chat rooms based on tags or to set up their own room(s) that are either public or private.
posted by terrapin on Aug 22, 2006 - 21 comments

Stickam One might be tempted to dismiss it at first glance as just a video-enabled Myspace clone for emo teens with webcams; but looking past that you'll find a fairly robust and platform-independent Flash-based webcam broadcast and videoconferencing app. There's a profile page with an embedabble Flash viewer, a full screen personal conference popup with privacy options, group video chat rooms, and hosted galleries for photo, video and audio content. Is this the advent of Cam Whoring 2.0? (Oh, and see if you can catch the Pissed-Off Caveman online. It's a webcam pointed at a decked-out Robot Chimpanzee Head.)
posted by brownpau on Aug 8, 2006 - 16 comments

Chat about any content on the web by adding gabbly.com in front of any URL.
posted by the_bone on Jun 25, 2006 - 67 comments

"For half a nanosecond I was tempted to join in the discussion. And then I remembered that all internet debates, without exception, are entirely futile. So I didn't." - Charlie Brooker on Internet discussions.
posted by Artw on Jun 2, 2006 - 67 comments

An early VoIP casualty. Think VoIP is a new phenomenon, and talking to people with Skype or Free World Dialup is incredible? Ten years ago, Onlive! put the Onlive! Traveler -- a collaborative VoIP product that's amazing even today -- into beta. With Traveler, a Windows95 (!) PC, a decent graphics card, a SoundBlaster and a dial-up Internet connection, you could not only chat with a friend, but participate in collaborative chats with the avatars of multiple friends in various 3-D rendered worlds. The avatars' lips even moved with your voice (.mpg movie). You could talk worldwide, for free. But even though Onlive! was around well before the boom, they were an unfortunate dot-com casualty, as Traveler never quite took off. Perhaps Traveler was doomed by the limited connectivity available in the mid 90's, or perhaps it was doomed by its occasionally creepy, fantastic 3-D designs -- but due to a number of collaborators, the Traveler still lives on today on a series of servers, and the (free) software still works on modern Windows PCs.
posted by eschatfische on Oct 7, 2005 - 13 comments

Meebo.com. Web based chat (alpha) for all the main IM protocols.
posted by machaus on Oct 6, 2005 - 22 comments

The First Interspecies Online Chat. An Internet chat with Koko the Gorilla. Some fascinating discourse with the world's most famous primate..... Question: Do you like to chat with other people? LiveKOKO: fine nipple
posted by Idiot Mittens on Sep 7, 2005 - 34 comments

Google's big announcement due on Wednesday. Google is due to make an announcement on Wednesday of a new service focusing on presence and communication. The word on the internets is that it will be a chat and IM client. Google already has a chat client in the picture sharing app, Hello, which is available in both standalone install and as part of Picasa. Possible screenshot of the app is here, with additional coverage at BigBlueBall and Neowin. The prevalent consensus seems to be that it will be (or be based on ) Jabber, (PDF) with the core innovation being the use of XMPP.
posted by rzklkng on Aug 23, 2005 - 122 comments

"Disposable" Instant Messaging. Click a link and chat to someone with just your browser*. "Include [a link] when you create eBay auctions, Craigslist personals, weblogs, moblogs, personal websites, Friendster, etc. and viewers will be able to contact you instantly." *Requires Flash.
posted by Blue Stone on Jul 9, 2004 - 20 comments

Dial-Up For Murder.
So, you're a typical geeky teenage boy with serious angst and a death wish. How do you commit the fatal deed? Obvious! Groom an older boy by writing 50,000 lines of fantasy, inventing 8 characters, including a female spy offering sex, meet up to buy a blade, and voila! - redefine murder plots for us all.
Wierdest.Web.Story.Evah?
posted by dash_slot- on May 29, 2004 - 15 comments

Vixen Love - Read the logs of AIM users tricked into a relationship with a mindless chat bot named Emily. Remember, VixenLove is just out to make friends!
posted by anastasiav on Dec 5, 2003 - 20 comments

The Cybersexual Adventures of J-Dogg
J-Dogg: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.
BritneySpears27: Oh, I like to play dress up.
J-Dogg: Me too baby.
BritneySpears27: I kiss you softly on your chest.
J-Dogg: I cast Lvl. 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.
BritneySpears27: Hey...
J-Dogg: I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl. 8 Cock of the Infinite.
(via Harpers)
posted by Ljubljana on Sep 16, 2003 - 30 comments

DA ENGLISH-2-12-Y3AR-OLD-AOLER TRANSLA2R WIL TAEK WUT U WRIET IN IT AND TURN IT IN2 TEH MAN3R A 12-YEAR-OLD AOLER WUD WRIET IT!1!1 LOL JUST WUT U NED 2 KIK START A MONDAY!!1!!
posted by riffola on Aug 10, 2003 - 32 comments

Ask the White House - forget fireside chats - e-Government is here! Got a question about judicial nominees, the EPA, the economy? Head to the online White House and ask your questions directly to national leaders. As with any online forum, be sure to check the privacy policy first.
posted by madamjujujive on May 8, 2003 - 9 comments

Buddyzoo is an interesting new site that lets you see which buddies on your AIM buddy list your buddies share with you. Sort of like a six degrees of seperation kind of thing. Very neat. Go check it out and sign up! And tell your friends!
posted by aznblader on Apr 15, 2003 - 13 comments

Pandorabots is a new site for building and hosting chat bots (HTML, not AIM) based on the Alicebot engine. They even have fee-based access to a bot. Interesting. I want to find out more about you.
posted by mathowie on Feb 14, 2003 - 5 comments

Yahoo IMvironments are the latest fad that the company's come up with. It makes your chatting easier, prettier and more fun - and a lot more bulky and resource hungry. I don't know how many people here actually use Y!, but my guess is this wont take long to disappear.
posted by arnab on Dec 31, 2001 - 20 comments

Trillian, one of the better chat programs out there, just got better. Version 0.70 is now available and it runs smoothly and looks great.
posted by davehat on Dec 7, 2001 - 37 comments

'WHOEVER I LENT MY NORD MODULAR TO /MSG ME ASAP' is an extremely funny fake chat log between the bright stars of the IDM/techno music world. If you're familiar with the music of Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Plaid, and the like, and if you've ever used IRC, then you'll probably get a kick out of this.
posted by 40 Watt on Nov 2, 2001 - 28 comments

Trapped Briton sends Internet SOS. Trapped in his garden shed while surfing, he sent a request to a chat room for someone to call the Lancashire police. An American did.
posted by sierray on Oct 22, 2001 - 14 comments

Oh my god, i'm so addicted. it's like a chat. but it's like the sims. and it looks swedish. and i can't stop hanging out there. i'm in the room 'shacknews'.
posted by jcterminal on Oct 18, 2001 - 25 comments

This is cool...and fun...and bizarre!!!
I stumbled across this on ScriptingNews -- so take a look here first. It's weird -- to say the least-- but it's very cool too... like playing and chatting while you browse (sorta). Anyway, you have to be running msie 5.5 for it to work... and there's a limit of only 15 concurrent users [just beta].

So if you get in, don't hog it! =) And if you can't get in, go dig the demo instead.
posted by blackholebrain on Sep 20, 2001 - 13 comments

Attention ChatMonkeys. Are you addicted to chat programs? AIM? ICQ? Yahoo and MSN? Even have two instances of mIRC running? Now there's hope. You can have all of these running all at once using *just one program*. And it uses far less resources than all of those other programs put together. matter of fact, i think it uses less resources than icq itself (like that's hard). It's skinnable too! Score!

/me hands out the needles.
posted by jcterminal on Jun 12, 2001 - 20 comments

HumanClick. This is cool. This allows you to post a little 'chat link' on your site. You can chat online with your visitors that visit your site. I added it to one of my sites and people just drop by and say hello. They don't need to install anything on the client side. Interactivity always seems to benefit sites.
posted by borgle on Apr 21, 2001 - 9 comments

Internet recording history
An IRC chat transcript recorded immediately after the 1994 Los Angeles 6.6 earthquake.
posted by rschram on Oct 24, 2000 - 6 comments

Cliques in chat! This is one of the most unique chat apps I have ever come across. What do they serve in the food over at MIT anyway?
posted by Brilliantcrank on Oct 6, 2000 - 2 comments