For a very long time now people have suggested that we open a Milovana chat room. Now, for a limited time only, I've put up a live chat, just click Chat in the navigation bar to join. You can continue to surf the site while you chat.
This is a pure trial, we'll see how it goes, what the ups and downs are and if it works out, we'll keep it. If not, it'll quietly disappear or perhaps be replaced by a different kind of chat.
Let us know what you think and what you would like to see improved.
One is the ad thing... Nowhere on Milovana are ads, why do they have to be in the chat? Couldn't you use something like IRC (Internet Relay Chat)? IRC is a rather old protokoll, but there are many IRC networks and servers and nearly all of them are free to use - there are even BDSM related Servers (bondage.com for example features such a Server). The big advantage is, that you can use many different clients - there are standalone clients, some programs like Trillian oder Gaim support IRC, Firefox users can use the Firefox extension Chatzilla and there are Java Applets (PJIRC) that could be embedded in milovana.com!
Not toooo keen on the applet taking over my active window, would rather something that could minimize to taskbar until a message appeared. But I guess that would make it incompatible with the advertising idea.
Bringing me onto... the advertisements. If you can make a few extra £/$/€ by giving the community an extra feature (still free, pointed out) then I think its a great idea. They're not particularly distracting / require you to sign up to use / click anything / etc...
... And there are still no advertisements on (what I'd call) the Main visiting points for the site: Forum & Web Teases. Which is good too! :)
It's great having a chat! Watching the guys getting teased on it right now. ^^ As far as the type of chat though, I'd really rather have IRC as well. With Gabbly from what it looks like you're dependent on hosting the chat on an external site and there's only one way to connect to it. IRC brings a lot of freedom as far as choosing between web-interfaces as well as letting the users choose how to connect.
I wonder if there could be some feature to ensure you have to be logged in to chat? It just seems to me that all one has to do is type in 'Tira' as their name and then they have my reputation in their hands.
Visit http://www.princesschristie.com today!
Tira demands it. And the Princess' affection couldn't hurt either. Well, it probably can.
Just to clear that up: We don't make any money from those adverts and if we do create a permanent chat, obviously it will be hosted by us and therefore not have any ads.
seraph0x wrote:Just to clear that up: We don't make any money from those adverts and if we do create a permanent chat, obviously it will be hosted by us and therefore not have any ads.
Seraphox: You may want to look into just finding an IRC applet or AJAX application you can just add on to the site, and then set up a room on one of the more permissive clusters; most of them are fine with "adult" sorts of channels.
That way 1) you won't be tied to a single protocol that may or may not disappear at any given point and 2) people can use their own clients if they so choose. If I recall correctly, there are some extensions to the IRC standard that support cams, which I'm sure some people might support.
A few minutes of searching found Mibbit, an AJAX client that can be embedded into a website: http://www.mibbit.com . I'm sure other solutions could be found with a bit more work.
Thanks for the tip, z_k, I know Mibbit, it's great. My initial instinct was to go with a purely web-based solution because in my mind IRC is a bloated, ancient standard that really is only useful for people who need to chat or "idle" in hundreds of channels at a time. (Yes, I used to be one of those people.) For casual users a web-based chat is often more accessible. And IRC doesn't play very well with the web - we won't be able to integrate the user login/registration for instance. And that has been the most requested feature by far.
So the question is now: IRC or no IRC? I've added a poll at the top so we can find out what people prefer.
Edit: I don't mean to bash IRC, if it was possible to get the best of both worlds I'd be all for it. But right now it looks like we'll have to decide between the customizability of IRC and the integration of a browser-based chat. Hence the poll.
IRC would take away the possibility to connect our chat more with the site. For example it's not possible to implement the username and avatar from the site, like seraph0x already said. And who knows in what direction this site will grow in the next years? I would vote for a chat system which is more connected to the forum profile and also to the webteases. We could encourage people to participate more if we create a special symbol for their chat name etc. The possibilities are endless. And we would be more flexible in general.
I like IRC as a cool and simple protocol, but it's not very user friendly, especially for people who are no computer experts and we would have more possibilities to connect the chat with the site.
