Meebo is one of the finest examples of the powers of AJAX (often confused and generalized as web 2.0 by the general public). Meebo has been continuously adding a lot of new usability features...still without charging a single penny!

For those who have a meebo username, you can visit MeeboMe and get a chat widget for your website.

Having a username, allows u to set your account details for aol/yahoo/gtalk/msn on meebo so you could have a SSO (single sign-on) into all of them when u log into your meebo account. the other feature i prefer of meebo is the chat history. in case of gtalk all conversations are archived in your gmail account (if u choose) so they are accessible on any pc where u can access gmail, but the others like yahoo store the archive on the pc itself. Finally you do need a username for having a meebo widget :) but you need not worry if you already don't have one...in step 2 (after you select the size and the name of the chat widget) you'll be asked to join meebo or log in with your existing id.

what's this widget that i'm talkin about? In layman's terms (it's hard to explain except by giving examples [:(] ) they are interactive gadgets or small pieces of GUI (Graphical User Interface), that enables the author implementing the widget add a totally new functionality to the entire interface. widgets are mainly used for content that changes rapidly. think of weather alerts, new email alerts, interactive chat with the site's tech support/owner. Meebo widget is one example and you can check out the example on my Plog (1 more reason to hate blogspot. the gmail attachments that i copied over to blogger didn't get stored on photos.blogger.com and now i got a blog full of large broken image placeholders and even uploading the animated gif's from my computer just converts them to dumb static png's). MacOS 10.4 implements widgets using the Dashboard software. For more details on widgets read this.

The meebo widget doesn't allow your site or blog to become a public chatroom (real-time or passive). you'd rather look for a java solution for that or a simple php script that stores the messages in a file and refreshes your site with the latest messages displaying in the chat box. Meebo allows the site owner to interact with the site visitors on a one-to-one basis and this is the point that differentiates meebo from the other flash-based chat-on-any-site widget by Gabbly, which enables visitors to a site to communicate with all those who are on the same page...y'know bad mouth the site together if possible :P If the owner of the widget is not logged in, then it appears so on the top section of the chat widget, users sending messages thru the widget will fall on deaf ears...just remain in the widget....as good as echoing the characters on screen just to test whether your keyboard is working fine. :) Once the widget owner logs in, the visitors can chat with him/her and the owner will get IM windows in his browser window/tab where meebo site is opened and logged in. This is an excellent way of interacting with multiple site visitors at the same time, without confusing the conversations between multiple IM sessions/visitors happening in a single place. However it is still at an experimental phase and there is no stopping a set of nuisance makers flooding the owner's meebo window with unnecessary spim (spam thru IM -- Instant Messaging).

Do visit my Plog and hope to get a chance to chat with you...if i'm online at the same time on meebo.

On my search for information on widgets i came across Yahoo! Widgets (previously called Konfabulator). It gives the same experience as the Dashboard system in MacOS X. Really cool, real-time interactive goodness. Google Desktop also has a lot of these desktop gadgets but not as glossy as these...hehe too much temptation to work on windows 2000/xp eh? don't worry it's possible in linux too...with the gloss if u will...it's just that big names like yahoo aren't really putting their name/money into it.