@andromeda - No, something is wrong with the socket.io setup. My setup loads up after that "waiting for socket connection"...now at least. I had the same issue, where I had a Nimbits server running on 8080 so I changed the socket.io configuration, but I missed the reference in the gateway.js script. Once I fixed that one it fully loaded.
I believe there are two references to the socket.io port. One in the "gateway.js" (as I mentioned) as well as the "/etc/nginx/sites-available/default". Check those...
Did the chat application that Felix used to test the configuration work for you?
--Jim