Cyworld, the social networking platform that lets you create your own virtual home space, has recently added Live Chat to its service.
You can now see which of your neighbors are online at the same time, and start a new, live chat with them immediately. A chat link displays in your list of friends online, along with the option of sending a message (Cygram). With this list of friends, you can also view friends that are currently offline, or are always offline. Included in your live chat window is your Cyworld avatar.
There's no way to start a group chat, or start a live chat with users that are not on your friends list. Nevertheless, the live chat options for Cyworld users makes a lot of sense for the service. Other chat developments in the social networking realm include MySpace's official IM launch as well as the development of a MySpace IM for China, and the Saki and AirWaves Facebook applications.