TinyChat is a nifty little service that lets you create multi-user chat rooms at a moment's notice. Last time we checked in on the service, TinyChat had just added the ability to do voice and video chat. Recently the company rolled out a handful of new features, including a few that give you more control over the chat rooms:

• Ability to control who can broadcast audio and video
• Give admin access to other users with the /oper command
• Push to talk feature that helps prevent audio feedback and the sound of people talking on top of one another
  
• Require Twitter mode, which requires users to login with their Twitter credentials (which can make it easier to track who is in the room).

The latest version also includes better video quality. TinyChat says the video quality of the free chat rooms is 4x better than it was.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

TinyChat is a service that lets you create an instant web-based chatroom with a unique short URL that you can share with anyone you want to talk to at the drop of a hat. We've covered the service before, but today TinyChat rolled out two new features: video chat and support for screen sharing.

The screen sharing application is a bit rough around the edges. But when it works, the user that wants to share their screen with other participants clicks a button and a Java applet opens up that lets you broadcast your Windows, Linux, or OS X desktop to all participants in the conversation. One problem is that once you fire up the screen sharing application the only way to make it go away is to restart your browser and/or Java. You shouldn't have this problem if you're trying to view someone else's desktop, only if you're trying to share yours.

The video chat feature is much simpler to use. If you have a mic and/or camera plugged into your computer, you can talk to participants in the web chat face to face.

The basic service is available for free, but TinyChat also offers pro accounts with premium features like the ability to password protect and record chats. Pro members also have higher quality video. If you're using the free version you'll see a pop up asking you to sign up for a Pro account periodically. It's only supposed to pop up after 5 minutes and then again every half hour or so, but right now the nag screen appears every few minutes.

In addition to paid accounts, the folks behind TinyChat are hoping to market the application as a white box solution for web publishers looking for a way to integrate text and video chat with their web sites. For example, instead of just asking readers of a blog to leave comments, you can have them click a button to participate in a chat about a post without leaving your site.

No matter how much you love Twitter, sometimes 140 characters isn't enough to express complex thoughts. That's one reason you see people posting links on Twitter to blogs and other web sites where you can find additional information. A while back we covered TinyPaste, a service that sort of lets you cheat at Twitter by creating a long string of text or links to photos or videos and creating a short URL that you can use to publicize the link on Twitter.

Now the makers of TinyPaste are back with a new service that lets you create an instant chat room, complete with a short URL that you can use to promote the chatroom on Twitter or other sites. TinyChat is about as simple as a build your own web chat page could be. You just click a button to create a room and then enter the room or copy the link to share with others. That's pretty much all there is to it.

You can save a log of the chat as a text file, email it, or post it online. And you can even embed a TinyChat room on your web site.

There aren't a ton of advanced features. You can't upload files to a chat room, for example. But TinyChat has the basics covered. There are a few emoticons and you can perform basic actions with the "/me" command.