http://github.com/rystraum/chatmonkey
ChatMonkey is a web-based chatroom service. You sign up and you get to chat with whoever is in the room.
Aside from I started this when I was still learning Rails, I made it for my girlfriend who is stuck behind a firewall that does not allow IM through. Good Rails exercise too.
I thought of Chat + something. I've tried Chatbox, Chatter, ChatDolphin, ChatPotato and settled for ChatMonkey because monkeys are kind of noisy. I kind of remember Buddy the purple gorilla I had on my desktop when I was 9.
- Private rooms and inviting people
- Probably change the 10s poll to probably long polling or something more efficient
If you've got more things in mind, just shoot me an email or put it up as an issue here in Github.