37signals launch Campfire today

37signals announced today that Campfire is official. Campfire is a group chat for business in the browser. I have to say, they did a great job. The chat is really complete: secure, it allows file sharing, live image previews, and when they claim the setup takes 10 seconds, it's true! I just setup a personal FREE account in less than that.

The 3-second polling technique worries me ... that's the one and only reason why chats should not be written with Ajax. It is way better than the 3-second meta refresh, but it's still harmful. Flash/Flex chats have far better performance, or combining Ajax and XML Sockets (which I will demonstrate this week at the Spring Conference) performs way better... of course, you need to deal with XML Sockets going thru firewalls... I'll post more on this shortly.