IRC is pretty simple. It's like a 24/7 chat room, where you can pop in wherever and chat with whoever is in there. It's a little more complex to get set up, but nothing 10 minutes won't take care of. For people who know how to work IRC, here's the necessary info:

Address: irc.gamesnet.com
channel: #sonicworld

IRC Client

To connect to an IRC channel, you need some kind of client. If you have Trillian (my chat program of choice) or Gaim, both of those have built in IRC client, which I'll let you figure out.

An alternative is mIRC. mIRC is easy to get set up. Just download it off the site and get it all installed. (Don't worry about the 30 day use thing, it'll still let you use it no matter how long it's been installed). Do File > Connect > Add.

Description: Whatever, it doesn't matter
IRC server: irc.gamesnet.com
Ports: 6667 (default)
Group: GamesNET

Once you're done with that, hit ok. Then click Connect to server. It'll ask you what channel to join in a few seconds of loading, type in #sonicworld. Then you're in. Pretty simple.