Chatrooms on the internet

Today we looked at chatting over the internet. I like to usually like chat using msn, which contains a list of my friends, that I have added myself, so I find it good knowing that I know the people I am talking to. It is a good way to chat with your friends, when u are both unexpectantly online at simultaneous times.
In contrast to this is the site such as Active worlds.com, which alows you to talk to people through games and three dimensional worlds.
I could talk to others across the bottom of the screen, when using Active world, however i found it difficult to use the figures on the top part of the screen. It is difficult to learn how to move and coordinate the characters, or recognise who the other characters are.
After learning how to navigate my player, i was able to wander around the virtual environment and take a look at the obstacles within the world. But, i still had a lot of trouble to to figure out the purpose for me being in the 3D world- it was like there was no point in my being in these.
It was fun to make my character dance and kick etc, but i was still bored with the game because there seemed to be no purpose to it.
Therefore, in comparison to each other, I prefer to use the msn chatroom, because I know the people I am talking to, and if I was to use a 3D chatroom such as Active world, i would rather use it to play a game, and not talk to others at the same time.