That's always been a real challenge for us. There is zero doubt in my mind that realtime chat cannibalizes message boards.
So we've revised an idea I had years ago. When we had realtime chat and I wanted to parse the chat logs into posts on the site to mitigate the cannibilization somewhat, it was met with a huge outcry. So, to prevent the cannibalization from continuing, I removed realtime chat.
We're revisiting that idea and are currently evaluating different chat platforms, but I'm finding them to be lacking so far.
While realtime chat will always cannibalize message-posting (our bread and butter), it's something we know our customers want, so we want to provide it. And by making separate threads that're logs of conversations, not only will there be more posts to read, but they might spark additional conversation, taking back a portion of what chat takes away.
And also would solve a major problem I see with chat. Its ethereal nature. I love searchable histories. Whether Zeev said he was loading up on XYZZ in a message or a chat room, I'd like to be able to find that information.
Once a solution has been found, tweaked, and implemented, I'm sure we'll do a blurb across the top of the screen.
