@Didymos Thomas,
People, its better than skype, gmail, and msn.
(never been on MSN)
Don't know if this helps but for the chat, if everybody starts two tabs when logging on to forum, then one can be for chat and the other for browsing, that way you don't miss anything. It could be automated too or something.
There is one flaw to it. Every time I go to load it up again, it resets itself so I can't see the old stuff.
And how do you invite people who aren't already on the chat?