Chat software

[Mal]

I'm looking for a good free chatroom software, doesn't have to be incredibly robust, but with a few specific features. There are several available for easy install through my hosting, and I could probably get anything else installed easily, but I don't want to mess around with installing them just to try them out and find they don't work, so I'm looking for suggestions.

I want to be able to have a kind of virtual "microphone", essentially so that I can control who is able to talk at different times. This is the most important feature, because it's being used for a sort of group meeting online, and I want to be able to give someone the floor for a while, let them talk, then open it up for comments.

Not as important, but I'd like to be able to color code groups of people, such as the moderators, the primary speaker, custom groups. That would merely help, but not be essential.

Somewhat important is logging, though I can also do that manually. It'd be nice if I could simply have it export into a text file the entire contents of the chat during a specified time frame.

I think that's all that matters, other than simply working well. Thanks in advance!

jW

[Mal]

No one?

jW

[Heath]

Are you looking for voice chat or just text chat?

[Mal]

Just text, like the traditional chat room.

jW

[Heath]

Have a look here:
http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/misc/webchat.html

[matperk]

another one i've tried out is called ajaxIM. It's pretty good, but every once in a while it crashes safari, but then seems to work ok on that.

[janey]

sidenote: I LOVE firefly :D and i love your name and everything :p


Okay, on to the topic...try IRC. And that's not a program...just a general protocol like AIM or Yahoo - there are looots of programs out there for those..similarly IRC is like that.

You can set the channel moderated so only certain people can speak.
i.e. if you only want the moderators and the speaker to be able to talk during a certain time, you set mode +m on the channel (chat room) and then "voice" those people.

You can "group" people by giving them different status.
Moderators get +o (chanop), trusted? people can get +v (voice), you can leave people be the way they are..you can set yourself as the founder if need be on certain networks.

Almost all clients log, except if you're looking for web-based it's harder.
Colloquy is my personal favorite on OSX (http://colloquy.info), but there are clients everywhere and for every platform - mirc/xchat/etc... for windows, colloquy/irssi/xchataqua/snak/conversation/etc for mac, irssi/xchat for linux, there's even irc clients for windows mobile and palmos, plus you can have a web-only interface (via cgi or java, haven't yet found a pretty ajax solution grr)


Macrumors actually uses IRC for part of the Apple Events notification (as an alternative to watching a webpage) and in the same way I've described above.


And I know someone above me mentioned IRC already, but the link sorta is dated and sucks (imo as a "power" irc user).
And, as for ajax-based im clients, I like meebo a lot.