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.

NetJaxer is the first initiative I've seen to take Web 2.0 to the next level. It allows you to integrate your favorite Web 2.0 pages, such as gmail, writely, TadaList, Digg, etc... directly into your desktop. They use their own browser, which is fully Ajax compatible (so they say :).

Netjaxer is an easy way to integrate your favorite web apps into Windows. Create a desktop or quick launch icon. Load any web page when Windows starts and run it as a tray icon.

For all those of you who attended the Real-World Ajax Seminar, I attached a zip file with 128 pictures... most likely you'll be able to find yourself.

Enjoy.

[04/02/06 - updated: added 11 pictures]