The State of Chat (in General)

Suggestion: Users Online

I wanted to bring this up again in the hopes that we can get a bounty going for a potential developer for a new chat system.
It seems the real difficulty is actually finding someone with the time to do it but money seems to be a nice motivator and I know a few, myself included, would donate to the cause.

I did a little searching and I found a few pieces that match what we are looking for (as far as my mind can tell) and while they may not explicitly work perhaps the code in the first one can be of help.

nodejs and websocket simple chat tutorial

sipML5

An already existing messaging client could be implemented as an alternative such as Google Hangouts but then you are subject to a number of issues such as privacy and regional availability.

I really like the chat system on http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/

its Chatango, and its embedded on every page(would go great under fight feed) and there is a box between the volume controls and current players online to open chat into full screen on another tab. conveniently enough there is a link in the chat box to add Chatango any website, just need the right person with the power of decision and implementation to look at it and try it out.

There is the code for it, nicely themed to match :)
I actually like the look of it myself as long as colors stay minimal.

http://pastebin.com/xUAW684W

And a live implementation

http://joshuanewlin.com/cb2.html

Looks really good, I'd be surprised if it got implemented ;)

It seems my link is redundant, you can simply access it from here. http://carnageblender.chatango.com/

This works on most mobile phones as well - "This page now works on Android 4+ (in Chrome) and on iOS"