Options to chat outside of the game

I know there are a few plugins available to do this in various way, but I'd like to get your opinion on what works best.

I'm running my own Minecraft server (cheap plug!), and I try to keep a close eye on it to monitor how things go, help players who need something, or simply to be available to everyone. I think it'd be convenient if I could follow the chat outside of the game, and reply directly to those who are in-game. I can do this somehow by using the server's console, but it's not very convenient since the log includes many extra messages that aren't relevent.

What are my options? Is there some sort of web chat option available? DynMap does include something a bit similar to this, but you don't have much in the way of user restrictions / identification, and the messages vanish after a few seconds only.

If I find no working solution, I could put my own together, but I'd rather avoid reinventing the wheel!

 

there was a plugin called IRCcraft or something like that that would join a irc chat room and send messages to and from the server to the chat room