My original title for this post was “Chat / Forum / Blog / Wiki Whaaaat?”..

I quite often notice, when talking to business folks who aren’t “webheads”, that there is a general confusion about the different types of internet-based communication tools.  And it’s understandable - as with any technology the differences are often negligable and muddied by marketers trying to be clever.

So in hopes of helping you get what you ask for when adding some of these tools to your business “bat-belt”, I’m going to start posting some quick descriptions of web communication tools, along with some business-world uses for them.

This week’s feature is “chat”:

Chat
Chat seems to become a catch-all term for any web-based “thing” where you can talk with other people (and quite often it’s used in a derogatory fashion).

From a geek perspective, this isn’t always true.  From a geek perspective true “chat” usually:

- Requires you to load special software

- Requires that both parties be online and in the environment at the same time.

- Requires that a “room” be created for the chat to happen.  Other rooms may be available to move into.

- Shows a list of who is online and chatting at that specific moment.

- Allows you to “speak” in the public room or 1:1 with someone else in the room.

- Allows both text-based and audio/video connections to occur.

Business Use
Chat is most often used by eCommerce sites as a way to interact with a company’s customer service or sales.  K-Swiss, for example, provides a “Live Help” feature that enters the site visitor into a 1:1 chat session with a sales rep.  One of the biggest challenges with implementing chat in this fashion is staffing it - people will be on the site 24/7, will you have reps available at all hours?

Next week we’ll look at Discussion Forums.