Not quite comments

ShoutMix - Free shoutbox/tagboard chat widget!
Shoutbox a.k.a tagboard/chatbox, is an easy to use messaging system that allows you to interact with others instantly. How it works? A shoutbox can be placed on your blog or website. Your visitors can then easily post comments in it. They can also use the shoutbox to chat with you and other visitors at the same time.
I've been toying with the idea of placing a shoutbox widget in the side bar to make it easier for visitors to send abusive messages to me. After an email from Justin earlier today I decided to pull my finger out and get on with it and, after checking out a few options, I went for what to me seemed the best designed and best featured which was Shoutmix.

At the moment it's in the sidebar way down in the 'about' section. It will stay there while I tweak some settings and make sure it's not interfering with the site in any way. If everything works out I'll move it up to the top of the sidebar and see what happens. I don't want to enable individual post comments for lots of reasons which I've made clear in the past and won't rehash here so this is a sort of compromise. If it gets some use I'll keep it but if it just sits there gathering dust and reminding me daily that nobody gives a fuck, I'll just have to remove it :)

UPDATE: It's now 'tweaked' and sitting in it's rightful spot. I quite like it. It's nothing like 'comments' at all and it has the decided benefit of being limited to 300 characters. The free version is limited to 150 characters, which might be a bit restrictive for any hardcore slaggers out there.