<Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet that offers a real - time transmission of text messages from sender to receiver . Chat messages are generally short in order to enable other participants to respond quickly . Thereby, a feeling similar to a spoken conversation is created, which distinguishes chatting from other text - based online communication forms such as Internet forums and email . Online chat may address point - to - point communications as well as multicast communications from one sender to many receivers and voice and video chat, or may be a feature of a web conferencing service . </P> <P> Online chat in a less stringent definition may be primarily any direct text - based or video - based (webcams), one - on - one chat or one - to - many group chat (formally also known as synchronous conferencing), using tools such as instant messengers, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), talkers and possibly MUDs . The expression online chat comes from the word chat which means "informal conversation". Online chat includes web - based applications that allow communication--often directly addressed, but anonymous between users in a multi-user environment . Web conferencing is a more specific online service, that is often sold as a service, hosted on a web server controlled by the vendor . </P> <P> The first online chat system was called Talkomatic, created by Doug Brown and David R. Woolley in 1973 on the PLATO System at the University of Illinois . It offered several channels, each of which could accommodate up to five people, with messages appearing on all users' screens character - by - character as they were typed . Talkomatic was very popular among PLATO users into the mid-1980s . In 2014, Brown and Woolley released a web - based version of Talkomatic . </P>

Chatting on internet is which type of communication