Partychat

Create chat rooms with your friends or co-workers using Google Talk or XMPP.

Why use Partychat?

Use whatever you use to chat already: Gmail, Adium, Google Talk, Pidgin, or any other XMPP/Jabber-aware client.
Catch up on messages you miss while offline.
Don't have to re-join rooms when you log-out.
Built on the reliable, safe Google App Engine
Easy to use, lots of silly features.

How do I create a room?

The easiest way to create a room is to sign in and do it right here.

Or you can add [roomname]@partychapp.appspotchat.com to your buddy list and send it a message to join the room. If a room of that name doesn't exist, a new one will be created.

How do I join a room?

The easiest way to join a room is to be invited. If the room has already been created, have someone in the room type /invite youremailaddress@anydomain.com.

You should see an invitation from [roomname]@partychapp.appspotchat.com in your chat window. Accept the invitation, and then send a message to your new buddy, such as "hi." This will finish adding you to the room.

Alternatively, if a room is not invite-only, you can just add [roomname]@partychapp.appspotchat.com to your buddy list and send it a message.

Okay, I'm in a room, now what?

Besides just sending messages and having everyone see them, most of the things you can do take the form of commands you type as special chat messages starting with a /.

Partychat demo

You can get a full list of commands by sending the chat message /help to the room, or on this page. Some key ones:

/leave Leave this chat room. You can rejoin by sending another message to the room. If the room is invite-only, you may need to be re-invited.
/list See who is in the chat room.
/alias newalias Change what name you show up as in the room.
/inviteonly Toggle whether this room is invite only.
/invite someemail Invite someone to the room.
/me someaction Tell the room what you're up to. If you type /me is rolling his eyes, everyone sees [youralias] is rolling his eyes.

There are also more advanced things like search-and-replace and the PlusPlusBot that you may want to read about.

Tell me more about this "partychat"

Partychat was started by Akshay and is maintained by a motley, ragtag group of current and former Googlers with names like Neil, Jason, Kushal, Vijay, and Mihai, although this is not in any way associated with Google. You can find the source code on Google Code.

For updates, please subscribe to our blog or follow us on Twitter. You can report bugs on Google Code and send feedback to the developers at .

How much does it cost?

Partychat doesn't cost you anything. However, as usage has grown substantially over the past year, App Engine usage costs are getting pretty high.

We have so far been paying these charges ourselves. If you use and enjoy Partychat, please consider donating some money to help us defray our costs. (Payments are processed via Amazon Simple Pay.)