A nice feature of the Progressive Faith Blog Con was the ability to follow what went along on IRC: Internet Relay Chat. (I wish someone had said the IRC logs were being projected into the meeting hall, or I might have been a tad less informal.)
I’ve written before on the opportunities available for dispersed groups to use IRC to conduct business; indeed, the Wikipedia board does. (A related how-to.)
Techsoup has a new — well, a retread — article on IRC worth considering.