An online chat is different from an instant message. Whereas instant messaging describes a one-to-one conversation between two users, online chat involves real-time discussions between large groups of users. These chats take place in public chat rooms (sometimes called chat channels). You can find chat rooms at any number of Web sites, accessible via Internet Explorer or any other Web browser. Chatting at Yahoo!One of the most popular chat sites is Yahoo! Chat, which is part of the giant Yahoo! portal. You access Yahoo! Chat by clicking the Chat link on the Yahoo! home page or by going directly to chat.yahoo.com. The main Yahoo! Chat page is your home page for all of Yahoo!'s chat activities. From here you can access featured chat rooms and chat events or click the Complete Room List link for a list of all available Yahoo! Chat rooms. tip
After you select a chat room, Yahoo! loads special chat software into your Web browser. This is done automatically, and takes just a few minutes. When you enter a chat room, you see the screen shown in Figure 26.3. All messages are displayed in the Chat pane; everyone chatting in the room is listed in the Chatters pane. Figure 26.3. A typical Yahoo! chat room enter a message in the Send box, and then chat away!You enter your messages in the Send box and then click the Send button or press Enter to send the message to the room. After you send a message, it appears in the Chat pane, listed in-line with all the other messages. Everybody else in your chat room is listed in the Chatters list. In addition, you can display a list of all the participants in every Yahoo! Chat room by clicking the Who's Chatting button in the Tools section. If you want to change chat rooms, click the Change Room button in the Tools section. When you click this button, Yahoo! displays the chat room list; click a room name to change to that room. Other Chat SitesIf you're serious about online chat, you might want to check out some of the other major chat communities on the Web. These sites include
If you're a subscriber to America Online, you can also access AOL's proprietary chat rooms. These are some of the busiest chat rooms on the Internet, and they're reserved exclusively for AOL members.
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