Enabling Group Chat or Conference Chat in GTalk

One of the main features that I like in Windows Live Messenger is that it supports Group Chatting. Whenever I have a lot of friends online I select this option. Even Facebook as I know so far doesn’t support this option in Chats. However it is possible to add group chat functionality by creating a new group and enabling the option. Just a few weeks back, I downloaded Google’s GTalk and liked it too since it was very light and many menus didn’t confuse me. But weirdly, it didn’t have a group chat option! I was really surprised and made sure that had the latest version available installed but still I couldn’t find a group chat option. I did a bit of Googling and found that actually there is no in-built group chat functionality in GTalk but can be done by other methods...




An open source project by an Indian guy Akshay Patil created in 2005 allows creating group chat in GTalk. Just follow the instructions as given below:

1). Add partychat@gmail.com and ask all those who are to be present in the group chat to do the same.
2). To create a chat room, instant message the above added ID with this command:
/create Room_Name [password]
3). To join a chat room, instant message the above ID with this command:
/join Room_Name [password]
4). Here the password field is optional but I suggest to use it as a security feature. Now you have set up a group chat and you will be able to send and receive messages from all members added to the group chat.
5). To see other commands available, type this command:
/commands