Ad hoc group chat using a social networking service

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-readable instructions for conducting a real-time private group chat conversation using a social networking service to connect users to the conversation, the instructions, when executed by one or more controllers, operable to:

• monitor, using a controller, a stream of text strings published by a public social networking service;
• scan the text strings to determine whether any of the text strings include an action tag that includes a predetermined combination of characters;
• responsive to determining that a first of the text strings includes the action tag, determine a creator user account name that is attempting to initiate a private conversation and reading at least one user account name in the first text string and a title for the private conversation to be initiated, the creator user account name being associated with an externally published creator user account in the social networking service and the user account name being associated with an externally published user account in the social networking service;
• cause a request to be sent to the user account in the social networking service, the request including an indication of the request for the private conversation and the creator user account name and a uniform resource locator (URL) for joining the private conversation;
• responsive to the user account accepting the request by directing a browser to access the URL provided in the request from the social networking service, connect the user account with a creator user account associated with the creator user account name in a private conversation;
• and
• communicate, using the controller, messages of the private conversation between the user account and the creator user account, the messages being displayed in the respective browsers used by the user account and the creator user account to access the URL,
• wherein the action tag starts with at least one non-alphanumeric character, includes at least one alphanumeric character, and is at the beginning of the text string such that the predetermined combination of characters are the first characters of the text string, and wherein the user account names are preceded by a hashtag.