Good Chat Rooms

What is not so easy to find are good chatters. The good chat rooms often are littered with people who do not understand the rules of etiquette on the web (also known as "netiquette." Just as the saying goes, one bad apple can ruin the whole bunch, and one rude "flamer" can spoil the chat experience of any number of participants.

Good Chat Rooms: A Personal Choice

Knowing that technology exists to make the chat experience easy and pleasurable, one is free to focus on content as the deciding factor for what makes a good chat room. It's a fine balance, as in any conversation, between finding people with both common interests and new viewpoints.

Most of the major email and internet providers such as America OnLine, Yahoo, and Google provide chat room directories to help focus a search within the criteria of interest. From as general a topic as "politics" to as specific as "Pekingese Show Dogs" these larger companies will probably have a group of people interested in any given topic. If not, they all make it very easy for anyone to start a conversation, announce it to the world, and wait for the like-minded individuals to join in.

The key is to know what kind of conversation is desired. The real recipe for good chat rooms are rooms where people are talking about interesting things in polite but lively ways. It doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks are good chat rooms; you need to define your own interests before you can find one (or more) suitable to your taste.

Specialty Chat Rooms

Occasionally they will also tie in to marketing campaigns run by the entertainment industry and announce chats that have celebrities, directors, and other creative people directly interacting with fans. The thing that keeps these good chat rooms and not chaotic free-for-alls is the presence of moderators who will screen some of the questions and comments. The best moderators let all but the most offensive or boring comments through, which can let the conversation go in interesting directions.

Business has also long used chat rooms both to get things done and also to provide users with access to leaders in the industry. Whether it be a simple talkback or an online lecture, much of the advances in chat technology have been driven by the need for business executives to have reliable and efficient communication between many parties. It could be said that good old greed is often the motivating factor behind the best chat rooms on the internet today.

As blogging has grown from simple journals into complex journalism, prominent bloggers will often announce chats for their readers. These are often unmonitored and can become quite confusing because people have a tendency to type responses without taking the time to listen to each other first. Because of the amateur nature of blogging, these types of online chats often aren't as technologically reliable as good chat rooms run by corporations. But, the unfiltered interaction is usually worth it.

Advanced Technology in Chat Rooms

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, some programmers started using images to represent the people in chat rooms. These images, called "[[Chat Rooms with Avatars|avatars]," can be whatever the user desires, ranging from an accurate picture to an animated cartoon. This has been largely replaced by the use of actual pictures of users, as the desire for real interaction grows on the web.

As video becomes more common on the web, chat rooms are starting to support webcams. Ranging from Apple's new iChat to web applications such as ooVoo, this seems to be the next leap in chat room technology, allowing people to see multiple participants all at the same time. The uses for entertainment, business, and just plain folks are immeasurable, but it still comes down to the reality that any chat room is only as good as the participants make it..