Advice wanted: online chat - text or voice

[DaveC426913]

I (or more accurately, my beau) want to start up a chat room.

- I am open about whether it is voice or text-only. In fact, I am open about whether it uses computers at all. (If someone could tell me how I could get a conference phone call going at a reasonable rate.)
- it's for a select group of people (~ a dozen) - by invite only
- the time is fixed, so we only need it open for a 2 hour window each few weeks
- I'd have to get the intended participants up-to-speed software-install-wise

I've tried MSN Messenger, but it's voice feature allows only two people.
Yahoo doesn't allow creation of new rooms, thus, I can't make it private.
Skype is just scary.

Advice?

 

[dduardo]

What's wrong with skype? It's free to use and has a conference feature of up to 4 people. Have you ever heard of the poweruser podcast?

http://www.poweruser.tv/

They use skype can it sounds very good.

 

[DaveC426913]

What's wrong with skype?

1] As per my requirements, it needs to support more than 4.
2] Their v2 s/w didn't work AT ALL last time I checked, it just fails outright. Maybe they've fixed it.

 

[dduardo]

If you need more than 4 people then text is going to be the only way. The bandwidth requirements for more than 4 voice streams is just too excessive for an ordinary broadband user.

How about an IRC chatroom?

 

[Evo]

If you need more than 4 people then text is going to be the only way. The bandwidth requirements for more than 4 voice streams is just too excessive for an ordinary broadband user.

I agree, voice was an option with Cu See Me and when newbies would enter a reflector and start talking it would eat all the bandwidth, they either stopped at our "request" or got banned.

Your only other option, that I am aware of, would be a pay service for voice, not sure what you consider cheap.

 

[DaveC426913]

How about an IRC chatroom?

OK, I looked at that and have installed it locally to test. (I guess I'm instralling a client, not a host. I thought I"d be setting up a host in my Domain or something.)


So, are my users going to have to go through the same procedure? Do I set up my "channel" and tell them how to find it?

 

[CosminaPrisma]

http://www.freejavachat.com/setup.html"
You can set up your own free chat room here, and boot unfamiliar people.
More about the website is located at the url below.

http://www.freejavachat.com/"

 

[neurocomp2003]

there are voice programs that are commonly used in games that you might be able to use..You'd have to hav ea host server...but i think their free.

Ventrilo and teamspeak are 2 commonly used in games...they house a lot more than 4...and several chatrooms on one server..

 

[mlowery]

I personally use Ventrilo. If you have high-speed internet, you can use your own computer as the server. When I want to chat, I simply startup the server software. This then allows myself and those with whom I wish to talk to connect using the client software. It is quite simple.

The initial setup up the host server simply requires forwarding a port, enabling DMZ on your local IP address (in most cases), opening the server, then connecting via IP address.