Chat

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What Does Chat Mean?

Chat refers to the process of communicating, interacting and/or exchanging messages over the Internet. It involves two or more individuals that communicate through a chat-enabled service or software.

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Chat is also known as chatting, online chat or Internet chat.

Techopedia Explains Chat

Chat may be delivered through text, verbal, audio, visual or audio-visual (A/V) communication via the Internet. If conducted through a desktop, chat requires software that supports Internet Relay Chat (IRC) or an instant messenger application, where a central server manages chat communication between different end user clients.

There are also online chat services that require users to sign up with a valid email address. After signing up, a user may join a group chat room or send a private message to another individual. Online chat services have purpose-built chat interfaces that manage the entire communication processes.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.