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Yahoo! Chat

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Communication February 2006 • Vol.10 Issue 2 Page(s) 91-92 in print issue	Add To My Personal Library
Yahoo! Chat Talk It Up

Chat rooms took the ‘Net by storm long before IM (instant message) applications entered the scene. Unlike IM programs, which let users send messages to their friends, you don’t need to know anyone to enter a chat room. As soon as you enter the room, you’ll see all the messages that other people send to that room’s message window.

In many cases, chat room conversations are relatively benign. But chat room screen names mask user identities, which sometimes attract users who have sinister motives, especially in situations where children are present. After an investigation by the New York State Attorney’s office into inappropriate activity in Yahoo! chat rooms, the Web portal closed its Teen chat category. It also denies chat room access to users under 18. According to Yahoo!, it also records chat room users’ IP addresses. It doesn’t share the information with other users, but, as Yahoo!’s Chat Help states: “Users should never assume that they are anonymous and cannot be identified by Yahoo!.”

Thanks to Yahoo!’s no-nonsense actions in the chat rooms, you can chat without encountering much trouble from other chatters. That’s not to say that you should let down your guard in chat rooms—you should take messages from other chatters with a grain of salt in any chat room, whether in Yahoo!’s confines or elsewhere on the Web. If you approach the chat rooms with the proper attitude, you’ll find that you can have rewarding conversations with like-minded chatters, day or night. We’ll show you the ropes of meeting people in Yahoo! Chat.

Find A Chat Room

You’ll need to register a free Yahoo! ID before you can make any online friends in Yahoo!’s chat rooms. To learn more about signing up for a Yahoo! ID, see the article “Identify Yourself” on page 20. If you want to use a name other than your Yahoo! ID, you can add a nickname (which appears instead of your ID) in your Yahoo! profile. In fact, you can create multiple profiles (and thus, multiple nicknames) and then choose a profile in the Join Room menu.

Yahoo! lets users enter its chat rooms via three chat tools: Yahoo! Chat 2.0, Yahoo! Java, and Yahoo! Messenger (see “Stay In Touch With Yahoo! Messenger” on page 88 for more information about Messenger). You’ll probably need to install the latest version of Java (www.java.com) to access the chat rooms via Chat 2.0 or Java. You’ll need to install Yahoo! Messenger if you want to use that program to enter the chat rooms.

Chat 2.0’s chat rooms include smilies, colorful fonts, and great features, such as the IM (instant message) button, which lets you send a private message to any chatter in the room.

To enter the chat rooms via your browser, click All Y! Services on Yahoo!’s main page and then click Chat. Enter your Yahoo! ID and password, and then choose a category from the main Yahoo! Chat page. The page offers Featured Rooms and links to international chat rooms, but you’ll find many great chat rooms by browsing the Chat Categories on the left side of the page.

Before you enter a room, you’ll need to choose the chat tool from the Chat Software field that appears at the top of the Yahoo! Chat pages. By default, the field displays Chat 2.0. When you click the field’s arrow, you can choose Java or Messenger. Chat 2.0 and Messenger are similar, feature-rich tools, while the Java chat tool has a more streamlined interface. Unless you don’t use Messenger, you’ll probably prefer the program’s easy-to-manage chat windows.

You can also choose a chat room directly from Yahoo! Messenger, thanks to an icon on the contact list’s Messenger tab. In some cases, you’ll need to click the arrows to the right of the other icons to find it. You’ll find the same category and subcategory lists that’s on the Yahoo! Chat Web page.

Once you choose the software, double-click the room you want to enter. A window will display a large ad and a small connection bar that indicates whether you have connected to the room. Once it connects, click Enter. Now it’s time to start chatting.

Chat It Up

Even users who have never tried a chat program before will quickly learn their way around Chat 2.0’s interface. All messages from the chatters in your room appear in the large chat window. The newest messages appear at the bottom of the window.

When you’re ready to add your two cents to the conversation, click the empty text field below the chat window and type your message. If your browser is IE (Internet Explorer), you can send the message to the chat window by pressing the ENTER key. Otherwise, you can send the message by clicking the Send button. When you send the message, every chatter in the room will see it. Several icons above the message field let you bold or italicize your message or choose font sizes and colors. Aside from typing in all capital letters (many chatters use all caps to represent shouting), feel free to customize your font. A unique font or color will let people easily find your text amid the other messages.

In some case, you may have trouble finding words that accurately describe how you feel (for example, you may want to make sure someone knows that you’re not sending a message out of anger). If you want to show a particular emotion, try out Chat 2.0’s smilies, Yahoo!’s animated emoticons. Simply click the smiley face next to the font field and then choose one of the smilies that appear. When you click it, a text representation of the smiley will appear in your text field. Click the Send button to send the smiley to the chat window. You can find more emotions by clicking the Emotions button in the Chatters menu. When you click one of these emotions, your name and a short message will appear in the chat window. For example, the Hug emotion displays “[your name] gives everyone a big hug.”

Don’t let unruly chatters take over your favorite chat room. Yahoo’s Abuse Report lets chatters police the online chatting community.

So who is in the room with you? You’ll find all chatter IDs in the Chatters box that appears on the right. If you think you recognize a friend and want to check out that chatter’s profile to be sure, right-click the chatter’s name and then click View Profiles. You can also send a private message to your friend by highlighting her name and then clicking the IM button. This message appears on your contact’s screen in a small window.

Customize Your Yahoo! Chat Page

Chances are you'll visit a few chat rooms regularly. If you want to access those rooms without browsing the category lists, add them to your Favorites section on the main Yahoo! Chat page. To add a chat room favorite, click the Edit link under My Chat. Next, browse the categories list that appears (the same list appears on the main Yahoo! Chat page). As you choose chat rooms, they’ll appear in a Your Choices list. Click the Finished button to add your selections to the Favorite Rooms category.

However, you’ll find that Chat 2.0’s Favorite Rooms list won’t include any of the rooms that you added to the Yahoo! Chat main page. If you want to be able to switch directly from one chat room to another favorite room, you’ll need to visit each of your favorite chat rooms. In each chat room, you’ll need to click Favorite Rooms (above the chat window) and then click Add To Favorites.

Clean Up The Trash

Yahoo! chat rooms aren't particularly raucous, but as with any chat room service, you'll run into abusive chatters more than once in your chatting career. Luckily, all of the Chat interfaces have a simple and effective fix: the Ignore button that sits just below the interface's chatter list. When you select a chatter's name and click Ignore, you won't see any text from that chatter—including text that already appeared in the chat window. Click the button again to reinstate the chatter’s text. Every chat room also has a Report Abuse link (just above the Send button) that takes users to Yahoo!’s Chat Abuse Report form.

The Last Word

Dive in and make some friends. Although you won’t see other chatters face-to-face, you’ll quickly find yourself creating a group of good, if faceless, online buddies.

by Joshua Gulick

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