A quick look on the various websites that let you create your own chat room for free. You can create private or password protected chat rooms and also embed your personal chat room to your social profiles or in your blog .
1. 99Chats
99Chats lets you create your own chat room in less than 5 minutes. Just sign up with any email account and start creating your chat rooms. You can create as many chat rooms as you want and add them to your blog, website or social profile (Myspace, orkut, hi5, Friendster, WordPress and Blogger).
You can completely customize the look and Feel of your chat room. Invite your friends and their is no registration involved to enter in your chat room. The service can also improve by giving every chat room a unique URL. This way it would be easier for users to invite friends.
2. TinyChat
TinyChat is the best chat application that requires only your browser to do the job. No registration, no signups. When you create the chat room, Tinychat provides a URL. Share the URL with anyone and start your conversation right away. You can also sign in with your twitter account and start tweeting in Tinychat
You can save your chat Logs as a txt file in your computer, email the chat log to any email address, save to your twitter account or as a URL that you can view later. You can add your chat room to any webpage or your blog. The only downside is that you cannot configure the look and feel, but compared to the advantages I think it does quite a good job.
3. Meebo Chat
Meebo Chat is similar in functioning but with an attractive interface and advanced features. You can create a chat room and embed it in your blog or website. Send the URL of the chat room to your friends and they can join even if they are non-Meebo users. What makes it unique is when you add a Flickr photo, Youtube video or any other web media, it is embedded in the room and all the users can view it. So it is ideal for conferences.
You cannot save your chat logs and any video embedded in a Meebo chat will contain advertisements
4. Chat Maker
Chat Maker lets you create a temporary chat room for your use. Just give a name to your chat room and share the link. No registration or sign ups and its completely free.
Users can join your chat room with their mobile phones which is an added advantage. Unlike the other services listed above, you can neither add this in your blog nor in any social profile. But it is a very secured service as you can chat with anyone as an anonymous user.
5. Yaplet
Yaplet is brilliant and I just love it. You can create a chat room for any webpage and start chatting around it without leaving the site (See example)
When clicked Yaplet opens a right sidebar in the Firefox window and takes you to the website. Other users online in that webpage can start a conversation.
You can set Moderator options in your chat room (requires registration) and ban a particular user. Also includes audio notification support (for firefox) so that when someone sends a message you are pinged! You can also link your chat room or embed the applet on any page. The chat logs are saved forever and you can see what others have talked about when you were offline. Impressive!
Bloggers can take advantage of this feature and add a link to their Yaplet chat in their blog. Unlike other widget enabled chat rooms this does not hinder your blog loading time as the chat widget loads only when a user clicks it.
6. Gabbly
Gabbly is best of the lot. Make money while you chat! Gabbly is a chat service that allows you to chat around any webpage. Just grab a URL and append gabbly.com/ in front of a webpage’s URL, you will be able to chat with anyone visiting the page at the same time!
There is nothing to install as it works on AJAX. Works on IE, Firefox Safari and Flock. You can completely customize and embed your chat room in a webpage. You can publicize your chat room by placing a link in the forums so that other people may discover your chat room and join. You can also create password protected chat rooms that allows only those users to join who know the password.
Registered users can make money via Gabbly. Just register for an account and gabbly lets you show your affiliate links in your customized ad-page. Firefox users can enjoy the Gabbly Firefox extension in their Sidebar.
So next time, your Grandma wants to have a chat and does not know how Instant Messenger works, just send a link to your chat room in her email!
Guest article written by Amit Banerjee from Ampercent.com, a popular technology website with tech articles, tutorials and how-to guides related to software, computers, and internet. You can also share your tips and write a guest article on QOT.