We've been playing with a new tool, Gabbly, as a possible means to run live chat on the NetSquared site during the conference. Gabbly lets you add a chat window to any web page on the Internet, simply by typing "http://www.gabbly.com" in front of any URL. For example, you could chat with other folks reading the NetSquared blog by typing in the URL "http://www.gabbly.com/netsquared.org/blog" -- check it out!

Gabbly keeps the last 18 messages in the chat room visible to anyone joining the room; and as long as you keep the chat windown open, you'll see ALL the messages typed since you logged in (plus the up-to-18 that were then when you arrived). And since Gabbly generates an RSS feed for each chat room, you can archive the chat about any web page by aggregating it back onto that page (as long as your web site has a built-in tool for aggregating RSS feeds).

Gabbly is open to all visitors, so it's not the place to hold a confidential conversation about the changes you want to make to a given web page on your site. But it's a free and easy way to add some real-time interaction to your web site: for example, you could add a button saying "chat with us" to your web page, that takes visitors to the Gabbly version of your home page. Leave the Gabbly version of your home page open in your own web browser and you can see who drops in during the course of your day. 

I'm very curious to hear whether folks like Gabbly, and how people would feel about using Gabbly to chat during the conference. Let me know by leaving a comment here, or by dropping into the Gabbly chat on the NetSquared blog.