Instant Messaging / Chat Room Functionality. Social Networking?

[The Californian]

Lately i've been thinking about the positive effects of having a chat room type functionality for each forum, and possibly having an instant messaging type function as well.

I've noticed a lot of "chit chat" type conversations occurring in the forums and while I agree that forums are not the appropriate venue for these kinds of conversation, I do believe that this is a site for Apple / Mac enthusiasts and people do get excited about connecting with other enthusiasts. I believe that if there were a dedicated chat room type function for each forum it would greatly decrease unnecessary posts while increasing traffic.

While I'm at it, I think that a social networking type format as part of MacRumors but possibly on a different ( but associated ) site would be a huge success.

These are just a few things i've been considering and wanted to get some input on them. Thank you - Eric

 

[iOrlando]

alot of negatives with chatrooms.

i mean macrumors members are nice and all but i think many wouldnt be pleasant to chat with in real-time. then add the robots, confusion, time waste involved in a chat room...and you can see why they died back in 2002.

 

[angelwatt]

They're also harder to moderate. I couldn't see myself using this if it was here. The PM are good enough for me. These are "discussion" forums so people can chat some if they like. There's appropriate forums for it all.

 

[ravenvii]

No way. SpyMac tried to do this, and look where it took them.

 

[thegoldenmackid]

I looked back, this was discussed recently. The problem is the amount of spam and the lack of moderating. If you want to chat with users PM them asking for other ways to contact.

 

[PeteB]

There's also the fact that MacRumors is a forum. If discussion takes place that contains some worthwhile information, then it can't be searchable (and therefore of no value to the forum).

 

[bigandy]

Like this hasn't come up before

 

[AAPLaday]

Id have to say no to this idea sorry, too much time would be spent having realtime convos about anything and everything and the real reason why many people love this site would be lost.

 

[SkyBell]

I know there's an IRC channel (As well as a stand alone IRC App that directly connects to said channel) but not too many people venture there these days.