IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It is similar to Talk in that you are having a conversation with other people at the same moment in time, but with IRC that conversation can be with any number of people not just two or three. Think of it as the Internet equivalent of the party line. IRC is one of the two most addictive services on the Internet, MUDs being the other.
People will take on nicknames to chat with one another on a channel, a space where a specific topic is being conversed upon such as #webmarket to talk about Web marketing. These nicknames are appended automatically before each segment of text people contribute to the conversation. In this way you know who is saying what. If you have an IRC client, you will type your own contribution in a small section at the bottom of your computer screen and when you are ready to send it, just press enter. It will then become the last line of text added beneath any previous comments until the screen fills with text and it starts scrolling up to accomodate new comments. For details about how and where to connect go to: <http://www.oz.org> or <http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/networks/nets/index.html> . For a list of IRC commands go to <http://www.newircusers.com/ircmds.html>.
You can set aside an IRC channel in order to have a multi-way conversation amongst a large collaborative group.
Copyright © 1996-2002 Dr. Katherine Phelps