Over the last six months or so I have found myself using IRC more and more. For those who do not know, IRC is a place where like minded people can create a channel, login, and talk to each other about the decided topic amongst other things.
On my Mac I am using Colloquy (which I have no ideas how to pronounce). As with most Mac apps, it’s a very pretty application and I am very pleased with it. On a PC I am running IRC through Trillian, my IM client.
What is driving me to writing this post is something I have noticed. It seems the strenth of an idea or product or a community is directly related to the activity in the IRC room. Geeks use IRC, geeks fuel successful communities.
Recently I started dabbling in WordPress cause I have begun to feel like Movable Type is a sinking ship. Like another content management system I use, CMS Made Simple, the WordPress community in their IRC channel is huge. There is constant activity and questions get answered relatively quickly. The same can be said for the Rails community.
(more…)