CometChat, a powerful chat application for websites (which was previously shared at WRD), has recently released the 4th version with new features and giving away 4 licences (3 Basic and 1 Pro) to WRD readers to celebrate the event.

In order to join the giveaway, please make sure you check the details at the bottom of this post.

What is CometChat?

It is a PHP-MySQL (or MSSQL) powered application that enables users of a website to easily communicate with each other and interact with the website.

CometChat sits in the footer of a website and supports both text (including group chat) + video/voice chat. It also allows file transfers, screensharing and, with the most recent version, the ability to chat with Gtalk and Facebook friends.

This is an exciting feature as it helps "the activity of users to grow" by keeping them on the website more.

The application also offers more than chat:

• it has 100+ built-in games -including multiplayer ones-
• users can write or draw together on whiteboards or writeboards
• it is possible to publish announcements
• integrates Facebook fan page and displays Twitter activities
• works as a social share widget

There are integrations with many other popular softwares (like JomSocial, vBulletin, SocialEngine, Invision Power Board, phpFox, Boonex Dolphin, BuddyPress, phpBB, WordPress, SkaDate, Elgg and more) exist.

With the new version, there is now a mobile web interface which works in all major devices/platforms.

CometChat can be completely customized to better with the style of any website and it can be controlled very easily with the help of a powerful admin panel with settings for everything.

The discount

CometChat is offering a 10% discount to all Professional Edition or higher purchases until 1st of November with the coupon code: "WRD10OFF" (without quotes).

How to join the giveaway?

CometChat is giving away 1 Pro and 3 Basic licenses to WRD readers. In order to join the giveaway, just comment to this post and the random query below will be choosing the winners:

SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=2537 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 4

Winners will be announced 1 week later (1 November 2011) as an update to this post. Good luck.

The winners

Here are the winners of CometChat licenses:

• Derek (comment #422062) – Pro license
• NiK Makovka (comment #417901) – Basic License
• MasterChowl (comment #418049) – Basic License
• Dennis (comment #418259) – Basic License

Congratulations and thanks very much for joining.

Online communication is a part of every designer/developer. With our friends, customers or colleagues, chats are usually the fastest and easiest way of communication.

Sometimes, the information we exchange online can be critical like passwords or "details of a project" and we want to make sure that it is private.

PrivyTalks is a free, simple and security-focused chat application that encrypts and decrypts the communication with RSA on the client-side.

Usage is pretty straightforward; once the room is created, the chat link is shared among two partners and the communication begins.

And, to make sure that there is no 3rd party sniffing the communication, fingerprints are created for each side, so they can exchange this information via another channel (like e-mail or SMS) and check if the connected user is the one that they are expecting.

That may sound paranoid but I'm sure every user had moments on worrying "what would happen if that info was leaked out" (and PrivyTalks is a simple + strong solution for the case).

The fast and real-time communication engine is built with Socket.io and the application works in all major browsers including mobile.

Cryptocat is an open source and web-based chat application that focuses on making sure that the communication is encrypted and private.

It is built with PHP and works with a single file besides the static files (CSS, JS and images) used.

The interface is simple-yet-nice and messages are encrypted with AES-256 using crypto.js library.

For a private group communication inside a chat room with other users, a passkey (used by all of the group) comes to the rescue.

Also, for paranoid users, there is Cryptocat Verifier, a Chrome extension which verifies that your Cryptocat session is not serving you modified JavaScript code.

Candy is an open source chat client, built with JavaScript, that works real-time by connecting to any Jabber server (you can host your own).

The application has support for multiple chat rooms, private chats with multiple users and blocking users (the moderator can even kick and ban users).

Its interface is multilingual and capabilities can be extended with the plugin support.

Candy comes with a well-documented and complete API which eases integration with other apps or your community so easy.

And, there are lots of functions provided to control the complete functionality of the application with custom events.

CometChat, a professional and feature-rich Facebook-like chat application is giving away 3 Basic Edition Licenses ($49/each) to WRD readers where the giveaway will end very soon. You can find the details at the bottom of the post.

Also, they are running a Black Friday discount on their Platinium EditionLicense (for the next 4 days, starting today). Again, details can be found below.

What is CometChat?

CometChat, that was previously shared at WRD, is a PHP-MySQL powered chat system that is similar to the Facebook's chat bar and offers more features.

By default, users can have a conversation in a chat room or talk privately, play games, send each other files, share the page they are visiting, view their chat history and more.

Also, depending on the edition used, it is possible to have more features like instant translation of the conversation, audio/video chat and even screen sharing.

Besides the ability to use it in any custom application, it integrates tightly into popular ones like Boonex, WordPress, Drupal, vBulletin, phpBB and many others.

Details of the Black Friday discount

CometChat is offering a 30% special discount for its full-featured Platinium Edition that will be valid for the next 5 days (29th is the last day).

Just use this link to get the discount: http://www.cometchat.com/buy/black-friday-sale .

How to join the giveaway?

First of all, the giveaway will be active for a short period, starting now. So, act fast!

It is enough to comment to this article in order to join the giveaway, winners will be selected with the query below and they will be announced once the giveaway is over.

SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=1965 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 3


Holla is an open source group chat application where you can create channels, invite friends to those channels, chat and share files.

It has a totally Ajaxed interface on every level (messaging, uploading files, etc.).

A nice feature is that the file uploads can be done via drag'n drops and every user in the chat can see the upload progress bar.

Holla uses Node.js for the real-time chat and falls back to Comet and Flash Sockets if WebSockets is not supported.

The application is actually a "sample resource" for the upcoming book of the author -which on asynchronous interfaces- and has a demo too.

Similar to the popular disposible chat websites (check 7 Free Disposable Chat Systems For Instant Communication), Anologue is an impressive one which is open source.

It works by simply clicking on a "new room" link and the application instantly creates a chat room with a unique URL where you can invite others.

The application is totally Ajaxed, built with PHP and uses the Lithium Framework, CouchDB and jQuery.

And, if you don't prefer to install your own, you can still use Anologue as the hosted version is free for everyone.

JsChat is an open source chat script that is built with Ruby (Sinatra), uses a simple protocol based on JSON and comes as a server/client application.

It is similar to IRC but simpler and has very useful features like:

• IRC-like commands: /names, /name new_name (/nick works too), /clear, /lastlog
• auto-linking: pasting an image displays it inline, Youtube and Vimeo videos will appear as well
• last messages are displayed when logged in

Users can "login to" or create multiple chatrooms (and they will be saved when logged out).

And, optionally, users can authenticate with their Twitter profiles.

CometChat, an impressive in-page chat application that was featured at WRD before, is giving away 3 Basic Edition licenses and 1 Professional Edition license to WebResourcesDepot readers.

Also, they are offering a discount that will be valid for a week, starting today.

The details on joining the giveaway and getting the discount can be found at the bottom of the post. But before that:

What is CometChat?

It is a feature-rich chat application (built with PHP/MySQL) that sits at the footer of a website (Facebook Chat-like) and enables the users of the website to communicate with each other.

The application is compatible with many popular CMS and forum softwares like vBulletin, Joomla (JomSocial & Community Builder), WordPress, phpBB, etc. and can be integrated with any custom membership system.

It comes with a set of very nice features like:

• customizable "Who's Online" list (display friends or all online users)
• direct chat with multiple users
• users can have statuses like available, busy, invisible
• new message notification with pop-up and/or audio
• support for chat history, avatars, smileys, auto-links and user profiles
• users can create chatrooms and send files to each other
• bad words filtering
• built-in 2 player games (pool, backgammon, checkers, etc.)
• and more..

The application can be themed with CSS and extended further with the API provided.

CometChat also has one other feature which adds another interaction level on how the community communicates: video chat support.

Users can invite each other to a video chat and, once accepted, they can chat from a Flash-based interface which works very smooth. (This feature is available in the Platinium Edition).

10% Discount

Every CometChat license can be purchased with a 10% special discount between 4th of May to 10th of May by simply using the link:

http://www.cometchat.com/?ref=wrd and use the coupon code: WRD10OFF.

How to Join The Giveaway?

Like mentioned, CometChat is giving away 3 Basic Edition and one Professional Edition licenses to WebResourcesDepot readers.

In order to win the licenses, you have 2 options where you can do both to increase the chances of winning:

• Comment to this post
• Tweet about this giveaway with the hashtag #wrdcometchat (To tweet faster, click to: CometChat – In-Page Chat With Video Support – 4 Licenses Giveaway (And Special Discount) )

Winners will be selected randomly on 11th of May (1 week later). Good luck to everyone.

BigBlueButton is an open source video conferencing application which is specifically built for remote learning but can be used for standard meetings as well.

The application enables multiple users to login & share their webcam or communicate via VOIP at the same time.

It is a very ideal application for presentations as users can upload PDF or office documents & keep everyone in sync with their current page, zoom, pan, mouse pointer etc.

Also, users can share their desktop with others easily.

There are 3 user types:

• Presenter: can upload presentations & sharing their desktop
• Viewer: have no authority within the conference, can only view & chat with other users
• Moderator:can upload presentations, share the desktop & change user types of other users.

Users can raise hands to get the attention of the presenter, mute any other participants they want & chat between themselves in public or privately.

BigBlueButton completely relies on open source technologies & it can be improved further with the API provided.