I mentioned in another thread, earlier today, that, while Chat Rooms are like the Wild, Wild West, I prefer that over heavy-handed moderation or Yahoo charging for Chat Rooms. I was just reading some past-due reading of computer tech related e-newsletters and saw this snip from the 1/4/2010 edition of WXPNews, which was talking about "Yesterday and Today" and how things are constantly changing on the internet. Here is the author's take on Microsoft's MSN Chat Rooms and their demise...
"There have been many other changes. In September 2003, I wrote about Microsoft's decision to turn their MSN chat rooms into a paid service, ostensibly in an effort to identify chatters through their credit cards and thus deter inappropriate behavior in the chat forums. Whether it was a money issue or the fact that chat participants weren't willing to give up their anonymity, it was less than a resounding success; in 2006 Microsoft shut down MSN Chat, following a "significant decline in new users." The old technologies are quickly replaced by new ones, though. As chat rooms began to disappear from the online landscape, a new type of Internet interaction started rising in popularity: social networking. A few years ago, it seemed to be a fringe phenomenon used only by the young. Today, most of my friends and acquaintances, including my 70+ year old aunts, have Facebook pages and almost everyone I work with is connected through LinkedIn." (END SNIP) As you can see, this is probably why Yahoo has chosen to keep Yahoo Chat Rooms free and more anonymous, for if they started cracking down on people too much, the rooms would likely fall apart and cease to exist. There aren't many free chat rooms available any longer as far as I know. Which ones do other members of this group use besides Yahoo Chat Rooms? Lenny Vasbinder http://lennyvasbinder.blogspot.com (Rants, Raves & Information) FREE and automatic online remote backup of your documents, photos and files... https://mozy.com/?ref=SY4ZSI Check out how simple and secure it can be to use the Mozy remote backup system. Mozy will back up your most important files and folders every day/night while you aren't using your computer.
