An alternative to lengthy Twitter arguments
blog.nurph.com
blog.nurph.com
For me (been IRCing for 15yrs), this is different from both ad-hoc webchats and IRC. It's better integrated into Twitter experience than your typical webchat. If you're a Twitter user and would like chat-like capability, you don't need to register, invite your followers over, etc (technically, you do need to do all of that, but it uses Twitter auth & profiles, so it's like an extension of twitter).
On that point, maybe it'd be great to provide plugins/scripts for other clients (see Embedly's Parrotfish) to instantly create & invite someone to a room from inside your Twitter (the official web, or some other) client; ie. a shortcut for creating the room and copypasting the url.
EDIT: I don't think it'd ever be a replacement for IRC, but neither do I think it should. I like the "IRC for Twitter" niche (how about "IRC for Facebook?").
I was participating in a Twitter exchange and one of the participants suggested we use Nurph to carry on the conversation. We were discussing a TechCrunch article about bootstapping startups, and at one point the Editor of TC Europe joined the chat.
It is a great idea, would like to see more people using it.
It's a great tool. Might really catch on with a bit more traction. Could work nicely with HN too.
I like the idea.
In order to take this to the next level, you need integration through the Twitter distribution system -- this needs to be part of TweetDeck, my Android app, etc (those are just the desktop / mobile clients I use, it needs to be in all of them)...
Great concept, but is it good enough enough that users will want to have a browser tab open to maintain it?
BTW, I clicked the 'login' button, authenticated, and got the text below. After going back to nurph.com, I am logged in and it seems to be okay.
var NurphBarOptions = { name: 'NurphHQ', panel_type: 'link', html: '\n \n \n <\/div>\n Chat with us<\/a>\n © Nurph. 2010<\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n Share This:<\/li>\n Tweet It<\/a> •<\/li>\n Email<\/a> •<\/li>\n Facebook<\/a>
I read Twitter by going backwards, reading stuff until I read a tweet that I recall having already read.