September 28, 2007

Chat Rooms for Google Talk

PartyChat adds one of the many missing features from Google Talk: chat rooms. You need to add partychat@gmail.com as a friend and use commands to create a room or join an existing one. To make sure nobody joins your room accidentally, password-protect it.
PartyChat is like a group chat, except that it's less obtrusive and persistent across different login sessions.

For example, say your friends are in a party chat named "drivel". To enter the chat, IM partychat@gmail.com with the line "/enter drivel." After that, you'll receive messages sent in "drivel" from partychat@gmail.com and all messages you send to partychat@gmail.com will be broadcasted to your friends in "drivel."

If you log out of Google Talk and then log back in, you're still in the party chats you were in prior to logging out. To leave a party chat, IM "/leave" or "/exit" to the address you were chatting with (e.g. partychat@gmail.com).

PartyChat is an open-source project created by a Google employee: Akshay Patil in December 2005, not long after Google Talk was released. Since then, Google Talk didn't add too much features. Only Google Talk's gadget has an option for group chats, while PartyChat can be used in Gmail Chat, the desktop client or any other Jabber client.

Some useful commands:

/create chat_name [optional_password] - creates a new party chat. If you provide a password, then other users must give this password to enter the chat.

/join chat_name [password] - join an existing party chat. If the chat has a password, you must give the password to enter.

/alias [name] - give yourself an alias; if you do not specify a name, your current alias is removed

/commands - displays the list of commands

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17 comments:

  1. DaveHSeptember 28, 2007 at 12:30 PM

    i made a room to test:
    it's called:

    bored

    go!

    ReplyDelete
  2. JasonSeptember 28, 2007 at 12:30 PM

    Why did this take so long to become known? Most people who haven't joined me on Google Talk only wanted group chat and with this it works. I am so getting more people into Gtalk now. Oh yeah!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alex ChituSeptember 28, 2007 at 12:33 PM

    I apologize. I knew about PartyChat since last year, but I forgot to write a post about it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 28, 2007 at 12:36 PM

    I wish there were some commands to invite people into your chat.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Alex ChituSeptember 28, 2007 at 12:41 PM

    Well, you can send them a message.

    Do you want to join my unique chat room? Add partychat@gmail.com as a friend in Google Talk and send this to the new contact:
    /join mychatroom

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jukka-Pekka KeisalaSeptember 28, 2007 at 2:35 PM

    Does anyone actually knows why Google hasn't integrated proper group chat. It seems really weird that it's missing from window client.

    ReplyDelete
  7. JasonSeptember 29, 2007 at 4:08 AM

    I have two theories though one, the later, is probably right. One the group chat makes the file size too big for Google to allow it for a simple chat program. (very unlikely) Or two Google is trying to move away from installing programs on your computer. Thus they have decided to stop updating programs that you do have installed that can be used through other means. And since the browser version of Google talk and the program version of Google talk were essentially the same, Google wanted to see if people would be more willing to use the browser version with group talk or if they would still use the program version without group chat. (Very likely)

    ReplyDelete
  8. pulsorockSeptember 29, 2007 at 8:37 AM

    Anyone knows how to change or delete the password from a group I created? Is this possible?

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousSeptember 30, 2007 at 5:36 AM

    @jdmartindale

    You are so right! The online Google Talk tool has been updated several times. YouTube support, Picture/Picasa support... and the desktop client... no update at all...

    ReplyDelete
  10. GaneshOctober 1, 2007 at 6:59 AM

    I have always opened up a Google Spreadsheet and invited the ones I want to group chat with and use the Discuss feature in there ;)

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousOctober 9, 2007 at 7:43 AM

    Has anyone determined a way to get a list of available rooms?

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousOctober 9, 2007 at 8:02 AM

    why does partychat seem to be offline...is it some user? and if its all that computer coding stuff it should never be offline

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousOctober 23, 2007 at 2:45 PM

    I would also like to know how to get a list of available chat rooms?

    ReplyDelete
  14. AnonymousOctober 25, 2007 at 8:08 AM

    i am knew to the chat room so please be patient but i am really good m

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousNovember 28, 2007 at 4:29 PM

    This is awesome. We have a local radio station that has a lot of listeners that use Gtalk and this is cool for a full on chat with other listeners.

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousNovember 30, 2007 at 9:20 AM

    plz kindly provide a clear idea of how to create a party chat or group chat wat ever you call whr o type the command

    ReplyDelete
  17. Alex ChituDecember 13, 2007 at 2:18 AM

    The command to create a chat room is mentioned in the post:

    /create chat_name [optional_password] - creates a new party chat. If you provide a password, then other users must give this password to enter the chat.

    ReplyDelete

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