It makes me sad that people are reinventing the IRC and XMPP wheel, and doing it poorly. Want your own version of this, with a bit less effort, but free?

1. Install an XMPP server

  $ sudo apt-get install prosody

2. Install a web frontent

  There are dozens. Here's one for example: http://amiadogroup.github.com/candy/

3. Congratulations, you just saved yourself $199.