Hmm Joe. Not sure about talking in paragraps but I think text chat can be difficult when you have lots of people in a room - who's talking to who???

Paltalk, a voice chat was different for us as I think as the main focus was really on the person on the mic giving a song.

That said (perhaps a bit like phones to me), I could find it a bit awkward for a one to one thing. ICQ was probably my favourite in that respect as you could read the other person as they typed and have time to think, rather that a stuttered conversation - although not fool proof - did once have a computer breaking down and merrily described a hard dick problem... damn typos...

Horses for courses and different tools for different people/usages I guess. Not used any directly in years but wen neice got to visit lately, did get to say hello to a brother in Oz, even saw him on er mobile...