The Six Biggest New Ideas in Chat:

1. Interoperability
After the initial success of AIM and ICQ, several other chat services popped up. Services like Trillian, Gaim, Adium and Miranda developed hacks to communicate across the different protocols. After a period of “cat and mouse” where AOL fought interoperability by making small changes to AIM, cross-platform interoperability has become a standard feature in most new chat programs. Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger announced interoperability this summer. AOL now has an open development API and Google Talk runs on the open Jabber protocol. Clearly, open standards are here to stay.

2. In-Browser Chat
AIM Express was an early version of chat programs that split away from a downloadable client and ran in your web browser instead. Services like Meebo and eBuddy have developed richer user interfaces by using AJAX and bridging chat protocols. Sequoia backed Meebo (rumored $3-4 million), and Lowland funded eBuddy (5 million Euro) continue to slug is out over this space. Meebo branched out even further by allowing embeddable chat on any website through their MeeboMe widget. Meebo has had steady growth since we covered their numbers last December. Daily logins and message volume have grown 5 times over, at 1.2 million logins and 70 million messages per day. Meebo claims 4.5 million monthly uniques and 700,000 Meebo user accounts. With the uptake in social sites, browser-based IM has brought chat to the places users are on the web.

3. Location Based Chat
Instant messaging programs connect people across the internet. Newer programs like RadiusIM and Meetro, connect people by their real-world location. RadiusIM is an AJAX application, while Meetro is a downloadable client. Both allow you to fill out your location and profile as a way to meet new people in your area, or even another country. Unlike the other developments in chat, location based IM hasn’t seen heavy adoption on other platforms, which continue to connect people based on a user generated buddy list.

4. Flexible Identities
As web personal profiles have grown on the web, so has the need to separate your private and professional faces. While users can handle this problem through managing various IM handles, Flash-based Wablet (our coverage) made profiling a central feature in it’s system. Wablet allows you to create multiple personas with different profiles. You can then embed these chat windows on the web and control which persona each visitor sees. In the near future, Wablet is incorporating OpenID. Chat service ScribbleHere currently works with OpenID.

5. Contextual Chat
Several new start-ups have popped up and changed the context of instant messaging from buddy lists to websites and interests. While similar to the old IRC chat rooms by basing conversations around topics, companies like Me.dium, Geesee the newly launched InCircles, OthersOnline, and 3bubbles have incorporated your location on the web into chat in different degrees.

6. Rich Media Chat
Web cams and microphones have been on the web for a while, but the growth broadband, VOIP standards, and mainstream incorporation through services like, Skype,Google Talk, and Yahoo! Messanger have expanded their use in chat programs. Skype and Yahoo! support calling to land lines and mobile phones (Skype is free until the end of the year). Paltalk creates voice chat rooms that can host conversations between thousands of people together at once. While voice and video does not lend itself to simultaneous conversations many IM users carry on, rich media integration brings a subtleness and depth absent from text-based IM.