Sitting in an internet chat room at 2am is a new experience for me. Despite having been working in the online news business for more than ten years, I have never sat up during the twilight hours chatting with total strangers. However, that all changed last week when I took part in (possibly) the first ever instant, live, interactive chat experience coupled with live TV.

Livestation teamed up with our partner channel, Al Jazeera English, to use our channel-related chat room to link up with the one-off vice-presidential debate between Palin and Biden. Dozens joined us to offer live reaction to the debate and the subsequent studio discussion, and a senior Al Jazeera journalist, Russell Merryman, was in the chat room, too, feeding comments back to the team in the Al Jazeera studio on Washington, where the post-debate discussion was being held.

A chum of mine, Jeremy Wagstaff, blogged about the experience as it happened:

“This makes all sorts of sense, and I commend Livestation for doing this kind of thing. The IRC format is a bit old school; it would be nice to see something beyond the noisy chat format. Or, even better, being able to drag our other communities into the window to watch together. But that’s down the road. This is a good way to share information—live and visual—and I think this is an exciting way forward.”

So, instant, live chat came of age for me in the early hours of October 3 (UK time), so much so that I’ll be there again at 1am Wednesday morning October 8, when the second presidential debate between Obama and McCain takes place.

I am also looking forward to seeing more URLs posted in the chat room to verify or challenge whatever the presidential candidates say. That was (possibly) another first the last time round.