Online chat may refer to any kind of

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...

over the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

that offers a

real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

transmission of

text Text may refer to: Written word * Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including: **Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred **Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...

messages from sender to receiver. Chat messages are generally short in order to enable other participants to respond quickly. Thereby, a feeling similar to a spoken conversation is created, which distinguishes chatting from other text-based online communication forms such as

Internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least tempora ...

s and

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

. Online chat may address point-to-point communications as well as

multicast In computer networking, multicast is group communication where data transmission is addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously. Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many distribution. Multicast should not be confused wi ...

communications from one sender to many receivers and voice and video chat, or may be a feature of a

web conferencing Web conferencing is used as an umbrella term for various types of online conferencing and collaborative services including webinars (web seminars), webcasts, and web meetings. Sometimes it may be used also in the more narrow sense of the peer-le ...

service. Online chat in a less stringent definition may be primarily any direct text-based or video-based (

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripher ...

s), one-on-one chat or one-to-many group chat (formally also known as synchronous conferencing), using tools such as instant messengers,

Internet Relay Chat Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...

(IRC),

talker A talker is a chat system that people use to talk to each other over the Internet. Dating back to the 1980s, they were a predecessor of instant messaging. A talker is a communication system precursor to MMORPGs and other virtual worlds such as ''S ...

s and possibly MUDs or other

online game An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms, including PCs, consoles and mobile devices, and s ...

s. The expression ''online chat'' comes from the word ''

chat Chat or chats may refer to: Communication * Conversation, particularly casual * Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in real-time * Synchronous conferencing, a formal term for online chat * SMS chat, a form of text messagin ...

'' which means "informal conversation". Online chat includes web-based applications that allow communication – often directly addressed, but anonymous between users in a multi-user environment.

Web conferencing Web conferencing is used as an umbrella term for various types of online conferencing and collaborative services including webinars (web seminars), webcasts, and web meetings. Sometimes it may be used also in the more narrow sense of the peer-le ...

is a more specific online service, that is often sold as a service, hosted on a web server controlled by the vendor.

History

The first online chat system was called

Talkomatic Talkomatic was an online chat system that facilitates real-time text communication among a small group of people. Each participant in Talkomatic has their own section of the screen, broadcasting messages letter-by-letter as they are typed. This int ...

, created by Doug Brown and David R. Woolley in 1973 on the

PLATO System Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institut ...

at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Uni ...

. It offered several channels, each of which could accommodate up to five people, with messages appearing on all users' screens character-by-character as they were typed. Talkomatic was very popular among PLATO users into the mid-1980s. In 2014, Brown and Woolley released a web-based version of Talkomatic. The first online system to use the actual command "chat" was created for The Source in 1979 by Tom Walker and Fritz Thane of Dialcom, Inc. Other chat platforms flourished during the 1980s. Among the earliest with a

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

was BroadCast, a

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

extension that became especially popular on

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

campuses in America and Germany. The first transatlantic Internet chat took place between

Oulu, Finland Oulu ( , ; sv, Uleåborg ) is a city, municipality and a seaside resort of about 210,000 inhabitants in the region of North Ostrobothnia, Finland. It is the most populous city in northern Finland and the fifth most populous in the country afte ...

and

Corvallis, Oregon Corvallis ( ) is a city and the county seat of Benton County in central western Oregon, United States. It is the principal city of the Corvallis, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Benton County. As of the 2020 United ...

in February 1989. The first dedicated online chat service that was widely available to the public was the CompuServe CB Simulator in 1980, created by

CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...

executive Alexander "Sandy" Trevor in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, an ...

. Ancestors include network chat software such as UNIX "talk" used in the 1970s. Chat is implemented in many

video-conferencing Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Ency ...

tools. A study of chat use during work-related videoconferencing found that chat during meetings allows participants to communicate without interrupting the meeting, plan action around common resources, and enables greater inclusion. The study also found that chat can cause distractions and information asymmetries between participants.

Chatiquette

The term ''

chatiquette Etiquette in technology, colloquially referred to as netiquette is a term used to refer to the unofficial code of policies that encourage good behavior on the Internet which is used to regulate respect and polite behavior on social media platforms ...

'' (chat etiquette) is a variation of netiquette (Internet etiquette) and describes basic rules of online communication. These conventions or guidelines have been created to avoid misunderstandings and to simplify the communication between users. Chatiquette varies from community to community and generally describes basic

courtesy Courtesy (from the word ''courteis'', from the 12th century) is Gentleness, gentle politeness and Royal court, courtly Etiquette, manners. In the Middle Ages in Europe, the behaviour expected of the nobility was compiled in courtesy books. Hist ...

. As an example, it is considered rude to write only in upper case, because it appears as if the user is shouting. The word "chatiquette" has been used in connection with various chat systems (e.g.

) since 1995. Chatrooms can produce a strong sense of online identity leading to impression of subculture. Chats are valuable sources of various types of information, the automatic processing of which is the object of chat/

text mining Text mining, also referred to as ''text data mining'', similar to text analytics, is the process of deriving high-quality information from text. It involves "the discovery by computer of new, previously unknown information, by automatically extract ...

technologies.

Social criticism

Criticism of online chatting and

text messaging Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/laptops, or another type of compatible comput ...

include concern that they replace proper English with

shorthand Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''s ...

or with an almost completely new hybrid language. Writing is changing as it takes on some of the functions and features of speech. Internet chat rooms and rapid real-time

teleconferencing A teleconference is the live exchange of information among several people remote from one another but linked by a telecommunications system. Terms such as audio conferencing, telephone conferencing and phone conferencing are also sometimes used t ...

allow users to interact with whoever happens to coexist in

cyberspace Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday re ...

. These virtual interactions involve us in 'talking' more freely and more widely than ever before. With chatrooms replacing many face-to-face conversations, it is necessary to be able to have quick conversation as if the person were present, so many people learn to type as quickly as they would normally speak. Some critics are wary that this casual form of speech is being used so much that it will slowly take over common grammar; however, such a change has yet to be seen. With the increasing population of online chatrooms there has been a massive growth of new words created or slang words, many of them documented on the website Urban Dictionary. Sven Birkerts wrote:

"as new electronic modes of communication provoke similar anxieties amongst critics who express concern that young people are at risk, endangered by a rising tide of information over which the traditional controls of print media and the guardians of knowledge have no control on it".

In Guy Merchant's journal article Teenagers in Cyberspace: An Investigation of Language Use and Language Change in Internet Chatrooms; Merchant says

"that teenagers and young people are in the leading the movement of change as they take advantage of the possibilities of digital technology, drastically changing the face of literacy in a variety of media through their uses of mobile phone text messages, e-mails, web-pages and on-line chatrooms. This new literacy develops skills that may well be important to the labor market but are currently viewed with suspicion in the media and by educationalists.

Merchant also says "Younger people tend to be more adaptable than other sectors of society and, in general, quicker to adapt to new technology. To some extent they are the innovators, the forces of change in the new communication landscape." In this article he is saying that young people are merely adapting to what they were given.

Software and protocols

The following are common chat programs and protocols: * AIM (No longer available) * Camfrog *

Campfire A campfire is a fire at a campsite that provides light and warmth, and heat for cooking. It can also serve as a beacon, and an insect and predator deterrent. Established campgrounds often provide a stone or steel fire ring for safety. Campf ...

* Discord *

XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), i ...

* Flock * Gadu-Gadu *

Google Talk Google Talk was an Instant messaging, instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users. Google Talk was ...

* I2P-Messenger (anonymous, end-to-end encrypted im for the

I2P The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is an anonymous network layer (implemented as a mix network) that allows for censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer communication. Anonymous connections are achieved by encrypting the user's traffic (by using ...

network) * ICQ (OSCAR) * ICB * IRC *

Line Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Art ...

* Mattermost * Apple Messages * Teams * MUD *

Paltalk Paltalk is a proprietary video group chat service that enables users to communicate by video, Internet chat, or voice. It offers chat rooms and the ability for users to create their own public virtual chat room. Paltalk Desktop is available on ma ...

* RetroShare (encrypted, decentralized) * SILC *

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, debi ...

* Slack * Talk *

Talker A talker is a chat system that people use to talk to each other over the Internet. Dating back to the 1980s, they were a predecessor of instant messaging. A talker is a communication system precursor to MMORPGs and other virtual worlds such as ''S ...

* TeamSpeak (TS) *

Telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

* QQ * The Palace (encrypted, decentralized) * WebChat Broadcasting System (WBS) *

WeChat WeChat () is a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has b ...

WhatsApp WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows use ...

Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versio ...

Yahoo! Messenger Yahoo! Messenger (sometimes abbreviated Y!M) was an advertisement-supported instant messaging client (computing), client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used wit ...

(No longer available) Chat programs supporting multiple protocols: * Adium *

Google+ Hangouts Google Hangouts is a discontinued cross-platform instant messaging service developed by Google. It originally was a feature of Google+, becoming a standalone product in 2013, when Google also began integrating features from Google+ Messenger a ...

IBM Sametime HCL Sametime Premium (formerly IBM Sametime and IBM Lotus Sametime) is a client–server application and middleware platform that provides real-time, unified communications and collaboration for enterprises. Those capabilities include presence ...

Kopete Kopete is a multi-protocol, free software instant messaging client released as part of the KDE Software Compilation. Although it can run in numerous environments, it was designed for and integrates with the KDE Plasma Workspaces. Kopete was star ...

Miranda NG Miranda NG is an open-source multiprotocol instant messaging application, designed for Microsoft Windows. Miranda NG is free software distributed under the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later. History In May 2012 Miranda IM was forked to Miranda NG (New Ge ...

Pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

Quiet Internet Pager QIP (; an acronym for Quiet Internet Pager) is a multiprotocol instant messaging client. It is a closed source freeware program originally developed by Ilgam Zyulkorneev. In 2008 it was bought by RosBusinessConsulting media group and named most ...

* Trillian *

Web sites with browser-based chat services (also see web chat): * Chat-Avenue *

Convore Grove.io was originally Convore, a real-time chat web application created by co-founders Eric Florenzano, Leah Culver, and Eric Maguire. '' PC World'' said "It works as a news aggregate as well as a question/answer forum for its myriad of topics ...

(No longer available) *

Cryptocat Cryptocat is a discontinued open-source desktop application intended to allow encrypted online chatting available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. It uses end-to-end encryption to secure all communications to other Cryptocat users. Users are given ...

* eBuddy *

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

* FilmOn * Gmail *

Google+ Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written as Google Plus; sometimes called G+) was a social network owned and operated by Google. The network was launched on June 28, 2011, in an attempt to challenge other social networks, linking other Google p ...

(No longer available) * Chat Television (No longer available) *

MeBeam MeBeam was a video chat website, that allowed any user to create videoconference rooms for up to 16 people. MeBeam did not require registration, login or downloading of software. Overview The site was launched by Ashod Apakian in November 2 ...

Meebo Meebo (often stylized as meebo) was an instant messaging and social networking service provider. It was founded in September 2005 by Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg, and Elaine Wherry, and was based in Mountain View, California. Initially the company ...

(No longer available) * Mibbit (No longer available) *

Omegle Omegle is a free online chat website that allows users to socialize with others without the need to register. The service randomly pairs users in one-on-one chat sessions where they chat anonymously using the names "You" and "Stranger" or "Str ...

Tinychat Tinychat is an online chat website that allows users to communicate via instant messaging, voice chat, and Videotelephony, video chat. It offers instant opportunities for people to meet and the ability for users to create their own virtual chat r ...

* Tokbox (No longer available) * Trillian *

Userplane Userplane was a white-label product used primarily for online chat by online dating services and language learning sites. History Userplane was founded in 2001 by Mike Jones, Nate Thelen, and Javier Hall. In April 2005, the company partnered ...

(No longer available) *

Woo Media Woo Media was an online chat and video social network which offered a variety of interactive sites that provided live social entertainment through a computer or mobile device. The company raised $17 million in venture capital from several investo ...

(No longer available) *

Zumbl Zumbl was an online chat service where users could converse with strangers anonymously. Users could "tag" each other on the basis of their conversations, which were indicative of their personality and were reflected in their avatars. Zumbl built u ...

(No longer available)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Online Chat Internet culture

History

Chatiquette

Social criticism

Software and protocols

See also

References