From what I’ve seen (with grains of salt and whatnot): Chat is an inherently transient medium. Being a participant in the conversation can be important and you

From what I’ve seen (with grains of salt and whatnot): Chat is an inherently transient medium. Being a participant in the conversation can be important and you can’t really reference a conversation you had on May 6th 2007 and expect to have people willing to continue it with you. On the other hand, you can resurrect an email or forum thread if you weren’t there in the first place and expect that it will continue to be replied to.