Help me find an easy & cheap way to set up chat for my forum?
September 25, 2007 8:54 AM 
Subscribe
I run a small, private forum for a few friends who are scattered across the US & Canada. I'm looking for easy ways to incorporate other ways for me to enable additional communication between members - whether it's a group voice chat or a chat room. I need help figuring out how to do this
very easily (I was barely technical enough to install a pretty skin for my phpBB),
very cheaply (preferably free), and so that it maintains a reasonable level of
privacy. Can you help me figure this out?
Basically, a few of us who were longtime members of a very large weight loss forum decided to split off to maintain a more private & close-knit group. To enable this, I set up a phpBB that is hosted at Dreamhost (it was a one-click install), and made it so that only members I approved could view or post messages.
I'd really like to somehow add a private chat room (not all members use an instant messaging tool), and it doesn't have to be fancy, just functional & private.
I'd also possibly like to set up some sort of voice-chat thingy if such a thing exists and is easy enough to set up.
The main purpose for either of these is to have weekly "meetings" in real time.
Do you have any suggestions? Thanks!
posted by tastybrains to computers & internet (7 comments total)
2 users marked this as a favorite
A quick google turns up Pibb, which looks like it might do what you want as well. It appears to be a sort of IM/Message board hybrid.
For voice chat, Skype lets you do conference calls.
You could also try out Ventrilo or Teamspeak, though both of those would require you to run a server.
posted by jjb at 9:38 AM on September 25, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]