Is online chat dead?
 

I used to be an IRC addict but haven't really chatted anywhere over the past few years. This weekend, I decided out of curiosity to see what was still around. It appeared to be dead on pretty much every network. Then, I went - again out of curiosity - and looked at chat websites and since MSN (which I never would have used anyway) doesn't have chat anymore..it leads me to ask if online chat is officially dead?

instant messaging and social networking have crushed a lot of the 90's chatroom fad

The chatrooms are dead since IM and networking sites like MySpace have popped up. But there are still a couple of them going around though there's not much people talking such as on Yahoo! :)

see siggy but we often lurk.

Hm i am not sure i think its still alive but its not like 15-20 years ago

So, I gather..though IM never really interested me with people I didn't already know. 'Back in the day' the irc style rooms were about meeting people in a group without being forced into a corner by some guy wanting to cyber.

go ahead and visit dalnet, you'll find a lot of channels still alive...

It's still used alot by warez groups, 'hackers' & gamers.. but yes it's dieing..

That is the first place I went since I used to have it as my base. I couldn't find a channel where people actually talked.

Mostly dead and the few that are left on Yahoo etc are absolutely filled with bots.

Well, its true up to some extent .. but you cant say dead. I have been an IRC addict too .. I still have some old nicks registered on DALnet which I identify every now and then to keep them registered. What I see that people on IRC are still doing all they used to .. posing as chicks, those tricky asl questions, for lil experienced people .. control codes, trying to be l33t, spam, inviting .. creating and promoting channels, flooding, nuke .. you name it.

you know lol .. whenever I see them now ... I say, damn .. how ignorant these people are :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

:pimp

Yes.............

C'est la vie

what fucking irc network were YOU on? :1orglaugh

I wouldn't say dead but it's nowhere near what it used to be since all the instant messengers sprang up

lol good point...but you could chat in the room and ignore the pming morons.

nah stopped irc long ago.. went back to check out a copuple times
all it was just spam
so gave up on it

i'm still on irc once a while... still like it and still have fun there ;-)

You are looking in the wrong place..IRC has been on the skids for years. Social networking sites is where the chat is to be found today..and its by no means dying.
If you are used to IRC style chat, dealing with the limited features of a java or flash chat app my leave you wanting, but some of them arent too bad to use.

I admit to not liking java type chat but more than that I dislike teenagers. Where to chat where you don't have to deal with teenagers OR it isn't expected that you are there for sex?

After years of daily IRCing, I finally figured it out...

The europeans screwed up Efnet pretty bad... its the @op problem as far as IRC goes, some jerk has the @ and when he wakes up and comes on, its his way or the highway.. thus you can see why its a channel of crickets. I found it to be all the Europeans that snuck their way into the bot list.. It's these anti-american fools that wake up and think they are better because of
their rising pound value.

If you know freenode, rocks now, and basically is suffering the same fate, as the Efnet mentality is slowing corrupting into freenode... and the same pompus control... So say the wrong thing and not be part of the IN CROWD
and its EGO time and troll calling.. which always leads to fun afternoon.. for me anyhow, i fuck with em daily

Aim For Life

If you don't mind chatting with bots, try Yahoo.

I'm constantly suprised how many 18 year old girls want to chat with me in chatrooms, and they look good!!

Honestly the real online chat killer is webcam spammers

do they still have "chat gangs" ... I remember these guys called "Seven Deadly Sins" or something. Great group of youngsters :) bot bombing each others IM clients ...

irc is definitely NOT dead. You could call it more underground, but definitely not dead.

Between the assholes with no life and spam it was doomed to die.

This board would be much bigger if certain people were not on it for sure.

As long as the blood ninja is around, online chat will never be dead.

The young generation doesnt even know what IRC is, it will be dead soon enough.

I think I have fired AIM maybe twice ...anything that reminds me of AOL chat isn't a good thing.

Why bothering chatting at all when there texting on your cell...

The idea back in the day was to meet new people. Heck, I met a husband that way once ;)

I am a recovering IRC hooligan.


I used to cause the Vietnamese a lot of grief back in the days when VietChat was popular.

If you miss IRC that much check out http://www.bash.org ...... but of course you already knew that ...

I was addicted to IRC from about 1996 to 2001-2002ish.

I load it up about twice a year now; there's usually a large number of people who were there in 2002, and even some that were there in 1996.

Glad I got out of that, it was a big waste of time. :)

never used irc,. used to go to some chatrooms few years ago ocassionally though

i think chatrooms got replaced with new kind of tools, namely both instant messangers and social networking sites

I also think using the web to meet new people isnn't as common as it used to be. I think all the social networks nowadays enable you often to renew the relations/friendships with your old friends from your past and as a consequence, you concentrate less and less on meeting new ones.

chatrooms, also arent that effective in meeting people, you dont know who's behind the nickname, so if you want to meet new people on the internet, meeting them through social networks and dating sites seems like a better way