Social networking websites have drawn the interest of people from all over the world - the current trend is to start a social networking site for gaining popularity and not just from earning money. One of the core features needed in a Social Networking site is the chat. Since the whole concept is to have people socialize with each other, whether it's a general social networking site like Facebook or a specialized chat site which focuses on a certain topic, chat is a very essential ingredient towards success. With chat enabled on the site it allows the member to communicate with each other much easily then sending messages to inbox and waiting for the reply.
It has been noticed that on social networking sites members tend to messages much more to users who they can find online on the chat rather than sending message to a user who is offline and waiting for their reply.
In today's world of advertisement and marketing there are a lot of things that a company can do instead of sitting and programming their chat feature from scratch. It is highly recommended that features like Chat, blogs, forums etc are taken out of the box and integrated to the site. This will save valuable resource time that can be spend on some other core features that are maybe not available out of the box or towards marketing. Most of these solutions are very reasonably priced and if a company goes in to develop their own components they would eventually end up spending a lot more than they would have if they just went ahead and bought these pre made already tested components.
Below are some key points to make sure when looking for a Chat component to be integrated in your site.
Chat component should seat neatly somewhere in the right or left corner where it does not interfere with the rest of the site.
The component should sit neatly in the right hand or left hand corner of the page. There are many chat applications out there that are similar to chat rooms and tend to cover the entire page. Those are a no go for the social networking sites these days. Chat must be visible on all the pages of the site and it must be small and compact as possible so it does not interfere with other work. It should also be easily minimizable so users can minimize it easily.
Chat should be AJAX based.
Make sure the chat is AJAX based so that it does not do complete page post backs and page refreshes. This will make sure that the users can do on the site what they are doing without having to worry about the page getting refreshed.
Chat must be optimized for bandwidth usage
A lot of the chat solutions out there are not optimized for bandwidth usage. This makes scalability a major issue in sites with high number of users. Most of these chat solutions continuously poll the server to check if there are new messages and if any new users have logged in. Even with AJAX such continuous request can be a major overhead in terms of performance and scalability. Make sure this is not the case with the chat solutions you have short listed.
Chat component must be easy to integrate
The component must be easy to integrate. Make sure that it can be easily integrated in your site. If the chat is not easy to integrate you will lose valuable time in trying to get this worked out. See if the company can provide you with a working sample of the chat component already integrated in your choice of technology.
Proper documentation is a must
Make sure to see if proper development guide is available for the chat solutions you have short listed. Proper training videos are another important factor that should be considered. At times it is easy to view a video and quickly learn rather than going over a 20 page developer guide page by page and trying to find things that you are looking for.
Must be easy to Theme
The component must be very easy to theme. If you will be using the component on your website than you surely want it to be of the look and feel that you website has. With that in mind make sure to see how easy it will be to modify the theme of the chat component. jQuery themes are something that is being highly used these days as those can be easily modified to fit the need.
It has been noticed that on social networking sites members tend to messages much more to users who they can find online on the chat rather than sending message to a user who is offline and waiting for their reply.
In today's world of advertisement and marketing there are a lot of things that a company can do instead of sitting and programming their chat feature from scratch. It is highly recommended that features like Chat, blogs, forums etc are taken out of the box and integrated to the site. This will save valuable resource time that can be spend on some other core features that are maybe not available out of the box or towards marketing. Most of these solutions are very reasonably priced and if a company goes in to develop their own components they would eventually end up spending a lot more than they would have if they just went ahead and bought these pre made already tested components.
Below are some key points to make sure when looking for a Chat component to be integrated in your site.
Chat component should seat neatly somewhere in the right or left corner where it does not interfere with the rest of the site.
The component should sit neatly in the right hand or left hand corner of the page. There are many chat applications out there that are similar to chat rooms and tend to cover the entire page. Those are a no go for the social networking sites these days. Chat must be visible on all the pages of the site and it must be small and compact as possible so it does not interfere with other work. It should also be easily minimizable so users can minimize it easily.
Chat should be AJAX based.
Make sure the chat is AJAX based so that it does not do complete page post backs and page refreshes. This will make sure that the users can do on the site what they are doing without having to worry about the page getting refreshed.
Chat must be optimized for bandwidth usage
A lot of the chat solutions out there are not optimized for bandwidth usage. This makes scalability a major issue in sites with high number of users. Most of these chat solutions continuously poll the server to check if there are new messages and if any new users have logged in. Even with AJAX such continuous request can be a major overhead in terms of performance and scalability. Make sure this is not the case with the chat solutions you have short listed.
Chat component must be easy to integrate
The component must be easy to integrate. Make sure that it can be easily integrated in your site. If the chat is not easy to integrate you will lose valuable time in trying to get this worked out. See if the company can provide you with a working sample of the chat component already integrated in your choice of technology.
Proper documentation is a must
Make sure to see if proper development guide is available for the chat solutions you have short listed. Proper training videos are another important factor that should be considered. At times it is easy to view a video and quickly learn rather than going over a 20 page developer guide page by page and trying to find things that you are looking for.
Must be easy to Theme
The component must be very easy to theme. If you will be using the component on your website than you surely want it to be of the look and feel that you website has. With that in mind make sure to see how easy it will be to modify the theme of the chat component. jQuery themes are something that is being highly used these days as those can be easily modified to fit the need.
Mango Chat is a full-featured Asp.Net Ajax Chat component which allows website owners to addchat functionality to their website. It includes features such as high load support, font/color/customization, emoticons, and many more! The best thing about mango chat is that its a webcontrol and is as easy as a simple drag and drop for the website owners.