Web chat: Difference between revisions

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i might move some of the other chat stuff to a diff page. (probably never lol) thanks again for looking out for my mistakes anonwaha!!
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Web Chat is the concept of being able to communicate text over the internet, typically through a browser or application in (close to) real time. This was state of the art in [[TEH OLDE]] days, and groups of communities gradually formed around websites as web chat software was added to various sites.
Web Chats are chatrooms based on the web, accessible through a web browser. They are generally accepted as some of the first forms of real-time chat, being introduced around [[TEH OLDE]] days of the [[1990s]]. This was before the dotcom bubble had helped make the internet mainstream, and as a result is also accepted as a RELIK OF THA PAST


<strike>This was especially apparent in Japan, where beforehand long distance communication had been limited to</strike> (i wanna do more research before i actually try speaking about it...)
(i'll figure out the wording here some time soon...)


== The Evolution of Web Chats in the East ==
== The Evolution of Web Chats in the West ==
What was one of the most popular, and first site that came to provide chat services would be Web Chat Broadcasting System (formerly Internet Roundtable Society), first founded in 1990, and subsequentially becoming generally mainstream in 1993. <ref name="WBS press">[https://web.archive.org/web/19971210161302/http://wbs.net/wbs/press/press.html archive.org of wbs.net's press page]</ref>
 
In , w3 had released the first open source
<small>(not 100% sure, will do more research. also need to see if the japs got to them before the west. it's definitely not but still. wbs is closed source right..?)</small>
web chat system, known as WWW Interactive Talk.<ref>[https://www.w3.org/WIT/ WWW Interactive Talk on w3. links to any actual code is dead..]</ref>
It was developed by Ari Luotonen from ~1993-1994, and subsequently released as a Bourne shell script for the public.
 
Whereas during this time, IRC and other real-time chat solutions had existed by this time, it was still very difficult for general everyday users to understand in comparison to how easy Web Chat such as WBS and other independent sites had made the process much more streamlined. As a result, WBS had quickly amassed 2.2 million registered users,<ref name="WBS press" /> drawing lots of attention and leading the company into fame.
 
WBS was not the only website providing these services however, with competitors such as Tripod, and Geocities (i feel like mentioning tripod is important since it seemed to have CGI support, which allowed for chatrooms to flourish. only that i cant find any tripod websites with any of those...)


== The Evolution of Web Chats in the West ==
Later, in 1998, WBS would be sold to Infoseek, a web search engine popular at the time. At the same time, many other companies had bought up other sites, namely Lycos (who now also owns Angelfire) purchasing Tripod for $58M USD. This, alongside other competitors such as Yahoo, and their respective chat led to a tense battle between companies to try rake in the highest user base.<ref name="WBS buyout">[https://www.wired.com/1998/04/web-portals-play-leapfrog/ 1999 WIRED article on the recent purchase of WBS]</ref>
<small>If you want to get into a more proper history of instant messaging, check the wikipedia article [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaging#Early_systems here]. (dunno if i should keep this)</small>
During all this, The dotcom bubble gradually became larger and larger as time progressed, with the previously mentioned Lycos peaking to a


As the development of the Internet progressed throughout the [[1990s]] and [[2000s]], many different companies and developers stepped up to create their own solution for creating chatrooms. One of the most popular and well remembered software in the western world was AIM (AOL Instant Messenger).
(TODO: a post-dotcom bubble paragraph or two. i think geocities webchat is applicable, and that lasted a bit after dotcom bubble burst. i think)


AOL instant messenger initally communicated utilizing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSCAR_protocol OSCAR], an ironically proprietary protocol that America Online used for the program. Today, you can actually still run implementations of this protocol and create your own AIM old style IM service with actively run projects such as retro-aim-server. Good luck with the cheese pizza orders... (did aol even have image support)


The OSCAR protocol is similarly used by many other chat clients such as ICQ, and the standard has been reverse engineered allowing for many other multi-protocol clients to be able to be used with the same servers.
== The Evolution of Web Chats in the East ==
(write about Yuiscript, see if there are any other older or newer CGI chat scripts other than COMCHAT.. and wonder if translator-sama is telling me the right things..)


(TODO: write about IRC & then more modern web chat such as facebook and yahoo messenger.. then whatsapp and whatever.)
== The Death of Web Chat ==
(i'd do more research and expand on the earlier to help but i dunno haoooo)
Today, ancient HTML style web chatting has fallen out of the mainstream and forgotten, as the progression of other, modern chatting software such as Discord, Skype (lol) and Slack. (they dont really count.. right? you can run all of these in a web browser but they are not really the same?


== Heyuri's Web Chat(s) ==
== Heyuri's Web Chat(s) ==
Heyuri as of writing has a few live chatrooms. One of the most active (relatively) is the Chat@Heyuri acessible at https://cgi.heyuri.net/chat/. The chatroom is based on COMCHAT, a chatting software developed by KentWeb for [[Perl|CGI/Perl]] platforms.
Heyuri as of writing has a single live web chat; being the Chat@Heyuri channel accessible at https://cgi.heyuri.net/chat/. The chatroom is based on COMCHAT, a [[Perl|CGI/Perl]] based web chat developed by KentWeb.


Another is the IRC chat room at irc.rizon.net under the #heyuri channel. Previously, it was on [[KolymaNET]]'s respective IRC server. For a more in depth explanation, check the [[IRC]] wiki page.
(i kinda wanna expand a bit. but i dunno what to talk abt)


Heyuri also has used this software to manage a now defunct chat for [[Hakoniwa Islands]], during peak times in the game's playercount. It is still up, in a read only state. (I'll put a link up sometime...)
Heyuri also has used COMCHAT to manage a now defunct chat for [[Hakoniwa Islands]] during peak times in the game's playercount. It is still up, in a read only state. (I'll put a link up sometime...)


== Links & References ==
== Links ==


* Wikipedia page on WebChat Broadcasting System [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebChat_Broadcasting_System]
* KentWeb site archive [https://archive.ph/nJQSn] (original website [https://www.kent-web.com/ still alive actually])  
* KentWeb site archive [https://archive.ph/nJQSn] (original website [https://www.kent-web.com/ still alive actually])  
* retro-aim-server [https://github.com/mk6i/retro-aim-server]
* Yuiscript site [https://archive.ph/wip/vnHxE] (site is seemingly [https://na006.tripod.com/yuiscript/ still up..] seemingly everything except the inbound & code links are dead)
 
== References ==
<references />

Revision as of 00:55, 8 February 2025

This page is under construction or broken...

Web Chats are chatrooms based on the web, accessible through a web browser. They are generally accepted as some of the first forms of real-time chat, being introduced around TEH OLDE days of the 1990s. This was before the dotcom bubble had helped make the internet mainstream, and as a result is also accepted as a RELIK OF THA PAST

(i'll figure out the wording here some time soon...)

The Evolution of Web Chats in the West

What was one of the most popular, and first site that came to provide chat services would be Web Chat Broadcasting System (formerly Internet Roundtable Society), first founded in 1990, and subsequentially becoming generally mainstream in 1993. [1]

In , w3 had released the first open source (not 100% sure, will do more research. also need to see if the japs got to them before the west. it's definitely not but still. wbs is closed source right..?) web chat system, known as WWW Interactive Talk.[2] It was developed by Ari Luotonen from ~1993-1994, and subsequently released as a Bourne shell script for the public.

Whereas during this time, IRC and other real-time chat solutions had existed by this time, it was still very difficult for general everyday users to understand in comparison to how easy Web Chat such as WBS and other independent sites had made the process much more streamlined. As a result, WBS had quickly amassed 2.2 million registered users,[1] drawing lots of attention and leading the company into fame.

WBS was not the only website providing these services however, with competitors such as Tripod, and Geocities (i feel like mentioning tripod is important since it seemed to have CGI support, which allowed for chatrooms to flourish. only that i cant find any tripod websites with any of those...)

Later, in 1998, WBS would be sold to Infoseek, a web search engine popular at the time. At the same time, many other companies had bought up other sites, namely Lycos (who now also owns Angelfire) purchasing Tripod for $58M USD. This, alongside other competitors such as Yahoo, and their respective chat led to a tense battle between companies to try rake in the highest user base.[3] During all this, The dotcom bubble gradually became larger and larger as time progressed, with the previously mentioned Lycos peaking to a

(TODO: a post-dotcom bubble paragraph or two. i think geocities webchat is applicable, and that lasted a bit after dotcom bubble burst. i think)


The Evolution of Web Chats in the East

(write about Yuiscript, see if there are any other older or newer CGI chat scripts other than COMCHAT.. and wonder if translator-sama is telling me the right things..)

The Death of Web Chat

Today, ancient HTML style web chatting has fallen out of the mainstream and forgotten, as the progression of other, modern chatting software such as Discord, Skype (lol) and Slack. (they dont really count.. right? you can run all of these in a web browser but they are not really the same?

Heyuri's Web Chat(s)

Heyuri as of writing has a single live web chat; being the Chat@Heyuri channel accessible at https://cgi.heyuri.net/chat/. The chatroom is based on COMCHAT, a CGI/Perl based web chat developed by KentWeb.

(i kinda wanna expand a bit. but i dunno what to talk abt)

Heyuri also has used COMCHAT to manage a now defunct chat for Hakoniwa Islands during peak times in the game's playercount. It is still up, in a read only state. (I'll put a link up sometime...)

Links

  • Wikipedia page on WebChat Broadcasting System [1]
  • KentWeb site archive [2] (original website still alive actually)
  • Yuiscript site [3] (site is seemingly still up.. seemingly everything except the inbound & code links are dead)

References