Chat FolderEncourage viewer-participation with a chat room during your live-streaming, podcast-recording sessions.

Previous live-streaming podcast episodes

Make sure that you've listened to previous episodes in our live-streaming series.

Ideal chat room features

Embedding a chat room is easy, but picking a service that works best for your listeners is harder.

  1. Hosted by someone else
  2. Embeddable on a web page
  3. Prefer without Flash Player
  4. Anonymous or guest access without account
  5. Account option
  6. Integration with Facebook and Twitter (including login with them)
  7. Top-to-bottom flow (like an instant messenger)
  8. Basic formatting (bold, italics, links, colors)
  9. Moderation controls (word-blocking, banning users)
  10. Free or low-cost

Sites that offer embeddable chat rooms

  • Ustream.tv—requires Flash Player, requires Ustream.tv account for chat room, posts bottom to top, mostly stinks
  • Justin.tv—does not require Flash Player, requires Justin.tv account, posts top to bottom
  • LiveStreamcurrently requires Flash Player (promises support for non-Flash soon); allows guest and LiveStream registered account; posts top to bottom.
  • Chatango—requires Flash Player; allows anonymous, guest, and registered account; posts top to bottom
  • Facebook Live Stream—does not require Flash Player, only allows Facebook users, posts bottom to top
  • 99chats—requires Flash Player, allows guests, posts top to bottom
  • UserPlane—requires Flash Player, free option limited to 25 connections
  • ChatRoll—does not require Flash Player, Facebook and Twitter logins, account option, posts top to bottom, free option limited to 10 participants
  • CBox—does not require Flash Player, $2/month
  • Anything powered by IRC, such as WyldeRyde. These are sometimes Flash-powered, sometimes Java (avoid these), and sometimes Javascript and HTML (get these).

Do you know of other services or have thoughts on any of these? Please share your feedback!

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Disclosure

This post may contain links to products or services with which I have an affiliate relationship and may receive compensation from your actions through such links. However, I don't let that corrupt my perspective and I don't recommend only affiliates.

About the Author
As an award-winning podcaster, Daniel J. Lewis gives you the guts and teaches you the tools to launch and improve your own podcasts for sharing your passions and finding success. Daniel creates resources for podcasters, such as the SEO for Podcasters and Zoom H6 for Podcasters courses, the Social Subscribe & Follow Icons plugin for WordPress, the My Podcast Reviews global-review aggregator, and the Podcasters' Society membership for podcasters. As a recognized authority and influencer in the podcasting industry, Daniel speaks on podcasting and hosts his own podcast about how to podcast. Daniel's other podcasts, a clean-comedy podcast, and the #1 unofficial podcast for ABC's hit drama Once Upon a Time, have also been nominated for multiple awards. Daniel and his son live near Cincinnati.
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Matthew Evins
11 years ago

Daniel – When I host my live podcast, there is a delay in the audio being fed to the live site (I’m using Mixlr because it’s audio only). I’m experiencing a problem with the lag and audience participation. By the time the audio hits the live site and users comment in the chat room, we are already on a different topic. Do you have thoughts on how to minimize this? Thanks!

Matthew Evins
11 years ago

Great – thanks for the response!

yunda
yunda
9 years ago

Thanks for sharing! I am using Chat4Support which helps to easily put a live chat roon on website. I like this live chat and visitor tracking solution. It is definitely worth a try and it doesnt hurt when you can try their free version too. They provide outstanding support!!

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