AOL, with 45 million registered users, is the largest proprietor of online chatting software and has been under scrutiny for blocking access to its AIM network by Microsoft and others within the online industry.

CNN: AOL sends a new message with AIM 3.0

About 10 million people use online text chatting and 1 million use video chatting in Korea, says Chun Doo Bae, president of CXP, Korea's largest video chat service.

FORBES: Technology

Childnet agrees that chatting online can be educational and help young people develop social skills.

BBC: The threat of the net

There's room for alternatives as users becomes more familiar with pasting photos, writing blogs and chatting online.

CNN: Fast forward: Broadband drama

After chatting online for two weeks, Shawn drove down from Louisville to meet Granoski while she was a student at Western Kentucky University.

CNN: How technology has changed romance

Kupstov and Benga said they started chatting on an online parents message board about the methodology after the first errors surfaced.

WSJ: New York City Gifted-and-Talented Program's Math Is Questioned

He spends at least four hours a day online pouring through company documents researching his picks and chatting with other investors.

FORBES: Magazine Article

To entice the farmers to show up, it offered to teach them how to sell their produce online and use the low-cost video-chatting application Skype to communicate with far-flung relatives.

FORBES: Feature

For now it feels the choice is forget about chasing and chatting about any new media from foreign shores with everyone online, and trusting that your moral choice will help you avoid the big spoilers coming up.

FORBES: The Future Of Media Must Answer Two Questions

And finally, an auto-chatting "chick" on social networking website Renren is the latest fad to trigger concerns about introversion and online addiction among youngsters, Guangzhou Daily reports.

BBC: China media: Housing law anger