Michael Pih
Norman Makoto Su
Ken Chan
Mistuharu Konishi
Eugene Ozhinskiy
Terry Dunnigan
Despite a plethora of internet chatting applications providing both instant messaging and group chat services, there is no way for a user to find fellow users who are interested in similar topics. Current instant messaging services like ICQ only allows a user to instant message and chat with a user on his contact list. In addition, a user of ICQ cannot find other users with similar interests to chat with -- there is no efficient way to find ICQ users with similar interests.
The traditional IRC and web-based chat rooms also have many disadvantages. These always-available chat rooms may be too crowded or even deserted. Often a user must invest time navigating a long list of groups or a poorly designed hierarchy before finding the right room to join. Once the user finds a room, there is no guarantee that the current topic of conversation is related to the assigned topic of the room.
Our project, ChatMaster, solves this problem of ineffective chatting by creating a way for people with similar interests to meet without encountering the above problems. Like ICQ, ChatMaster will support instant messaging (one-to-one chat), buddy lists, personal profiles, file transfers, and user status (e.g., "Available", "Away", "Do Not Disturb"). The messages that are sent to online users will be delivered immediately; otherwise they will be queued till the user gets online. The user will enter information about himself into the personal profile, and the user can allow this information to be made public.
In addition to the buddy list, ChatMaster includes a chat interest list, containing a list of chat room topics that interest the user. ChatMaster includes many predefined chat room topics that the user can add to his chat interest list. In addition, ChatMaster supports user-defined chat room topics, so that the user can create specific chat rooms.
The key feature that distinguishes ChatMaster from other instant messaging applications is its easy to use chat feature, "1-click chat". Using the data of the user's profile, the software will find among existing chat rooms in the system the one that will provide the best chatting experience for the particular user. The user could optionally specify the topic of discussion or the restrictions on the number and profiles of the people in the room.
The alternative way to find a chat room will be selecting the topic from the list/hierarchy, provided by the service. Both the hierarchical and user-defined topics can be added to the buddy-list, making possible for the user to start chatting by double-clicking the topic. The buddy list will also show for each topic the number of people in the system that would like to talk about this topic. The user can invite other users from his buddy list to join the chat room, or the user can send out requests to other users who share chat room topics.
Proposed Platform: Microsoft Win32
Proposed Development Environment: Visual C++ or Java
Example: John wants to chat about electric guitars and 80's music with at least 3 people. So he selects the "Look for Chat" option, which brings up a menu of options. He selects "Music" from the list of predefined categories, types in "electric guitars 80ís" in the topic field. This creates a new chat room profile. At that time, there is only one other person online, named Bob, who also wants to talk about electric guitars and 80ís music. The chat profile remains in the "Waiting" state until Jane comes online and decides that she wants to chat about 80ís music and electric guitars. Now that all of Johnís chat criteria are met, he automatically sends chat invitations to Bob and Jane, and voila, we have a not-so-random random chat. Of course, in this example, John could have restricted his chat room profile to people who have similar personal profiles (e.g., 40 year olds, single, male).
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