A Meebo chat room is a flash based text chat, third party script that can be used on your iGrOOps homepage.  It would appear right under your custom content (message of the day):

non-working screen capture of a Meebo chat room on an iGrOOp homepage

iGrOOps already offers audio and video chat, both of which can also be used as a text chat, so why use a Meebo Chat Room?

• It would automatically appear on your homepage, which means it would be used more
• Members login or registration is not needed -- it is more of a public chat
• It is very simple to use and easy for anyone to figure out
• It can help you attract new members to your group
• It is quite simple to activate for your group

But before you activate this feature, please be aware of the potential pitfalls:

• This is NOT an iGrOOps application -- it is a third party "widget" by Meebo.  We have no control over potential future advertising on the widget.
• It is public.  This is not like the other iGrOOps chat tools where you can limit members only.  Even if you were to place this in your members only area, the room is still available in the Meebo network that means anyone can join in
• As of this writing, there is no way to clear the history.  So if people say bad things, they will be in the chat history.

Ok, now that you know the pros and cons, if you choose to activate this, follow these steps.

1) Login to Meebo.com (get an account if you already do not have one there)

2) At the bottom of the screen, you should see "create new room" - click on that

3) Enter in the information they ask for.  Do NOT make your room private -- it will not work properly as a widget.

4) When you are done with creating the widget it should appear on your screen after a moment. When it does, click on the "Embed on your Site" button.

5) Don't bother with any of the settings -- iGrOOps will set this for you on the display.  Copy the code to a text editor and copy the ID:

The ID appears in the meebo URL, after the "id=" string.

6) Enter your iGrOOps homepage editor, and you will see the Meebo Chat Room option.  Enter this ID there and save.

The Meebo Chat Room widget will NOT include the video feature -- you DON'T want this!  They run constant commercials!