Live chat is available. It is not web based. You need to school yourself on IRC a little.
I use the sorcery server, spam bots and other troublemakers don't go there, it's well-maintained. Been using it for over 10 years.
The channel name is #YosemiteNews.info
You can use the channel for one-on-one live chat all you want. It's there. And free. Consider it internet texting, and you can PM there if you want to hook up otherwise. Learn it.
If all you have is a web browser you can access the chat at iuturna.sorcery.net until you learn how to use live IRC.
Dialup doesn't matter, IRC is very, very low bandwidth.