How Google Could Overthrow AIM

An anonymous reader writes "There's an interesting article over at Apple-X.net that speculates on the possibility of an instant-messaging service offered by Google that would be based on the open Jabber protocol. If Jabber was supported by a major company like Google, it could dominate over proprietary services such as AIM or MSN."

Comments

hahah.

[jabella]

speculates on the possibility

just made me laugh.

why?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no advantage to using one IM service over another, so why anybody switch?

Re:why?

[turnstyle]

I think the question of Google IM will hinge on the success of GMail, and especially the placement of Google Ads in GMail.

If it works in GMail, expect to see GIM.

Re:why?

[ad0gg]

Yes there is. Better Emoticons!

Re:why?

[Jonavin]

Yes, how many times have you said ... "there are no emoticon to show how I feel right now"

Re:why?

[GoMMiX]

Because there is a major advantage to switching to an open IM protocol.

For one, you can write your own client to work with the service(s). Secondly, the service(s) are not dependant on a specific client so the IM network as a whole is substantially more secure.

I love jabber. Checkout Coccinella.

There are multitudes of other clients available, widely, for just about any platform you can think of.

Just like other open source projects, open source IM protocol(s) bring 'choice' back into the users hands. Sure, you can download Trillian or whatever and get on multiple IM services - but it's messy and the proprietary protocols (particularly Yahoo) are constantly being changed to prevent other messenger apps from working on their networks.

Just love it. Man, hope Google does do this. *Laughs* Like I needed another reason to love Google. :)

Re:why?

[AKAImBatman]

I think that using a Web Interface like Google does with GMail, would give them a distinct advantage. For one, you'd never have to worry about software upgrades or installation. For another, just about any content can be pushed to you. In fact, I really can't think of a single down side to using a webapp for instant messaging.

The only possible issue is that the logs and message transmissions would have to go through Google's servers. Personally, I don't mind that. At least I'd know that ALL settings and history are saved between machines instead of the classic issue of SOMETHING being lost when I jump from machine to machine. Not to mention that it would be the ultimate in cross-platform compatibility.

Re:why?

[nkh]

If (and only if) it's based on Jabber and can communicate with every Jabber-compliant existing client, it will be easy to filter all the advertisements by dropping the unwanted XML tags.

Re:why?

[nodwick]

Because there is a major advantage to switching to an open IM protocol. For one, you can write your own client to work with the service(s).

Are you serious? How many people do you know who are running IM clients they've written themselves? This isn't going to be the selling point to get people to ditch their old networks. IM networks aren't like operating systems: it's not enough that YOU switch to your favorite open source alternative, if you want to have anyone to talk to you'd better convince all your friends to switch too.

Another post talked about the "good old days" before IM fragmentation when everyone just used ICQ. In my view, the golden opportunity for everyone else to get market share was when Mirabilis failed to update ICQ so that it would work through corporate firewalls. Before long, all the kids who were crazy about IM in college graduated, found out they couldn't run ICQ through their company's corporate firewall, and moved en mass to other networks like Yahoo that had workarounds. By the time ICQ caught up, it was too late, people had already switched.

If Google is going to get their IM network to take off, it's going to take something about existing IM networks that can similarly simultaneously annoy you and all your friends into switching. I'm not sure what it's going to be, but it'll probably have to be something stronger than the lure of having everyone code their own client.

Re:why?

[Rallion]

The single most important deature in an IM service, by far, is user base. How many people care if a service is open protocol or not? Not enough to make it popular enough to appeal to anybody else, that's how many.

Re:why?

[Aerog]

Will they switch? Sure they will. People switch because they're lemmings. Look at MSN. I guarantee most of the people I know on MSN only got it because somebody else they knew was on it, who got it because somebody else was on it...

Plus it's Google. I like GMail, think the interface is good for what I do with it, and if they can extend that to messaging then they can start to turn the geek crowd who will then make somebody else do it and the lemming effect kicks in.

Personally, this may be enough for me to install something like it again. Right now I will NOT install MSN and will never install it because of a few personal dislikes. However, Google? That could and may be enough for many to make the move. ... That and I find the text ads interesting and sometimes funny, but not invasive...

Re:why?

[thewldisntenuff]

Doesn't matter if you can make your own client....

Two important things to IM

-Ease of use

When I say ease of use, it's relatively easy to IM someone else you know, (ie - SN). Joe Sixpack doesn't want an ICQ id #, he wants a funny name like joesixpack900000 to talk to people with, maybe send pictures, and he doesn't want to write his own client or deal with inane settings....AIM and MSN cover this pretty well

-User base

More users = more popular...You're not going to use something no one else uses, open source or not

Re:why?

[vanillacoke]

When I write in my livejournal.

"I NEED something that displays my crushing sadness while moping to some dashboard

B-(

Ah, that's it."

Re:why?

[kfg]

Google Ads in GMail.

It's worse than that, it's spam, GIM.

KFG

Re:why?

[SignificantBit]

do you mean something like this.

Re:why?

[u-238]

Even if not there will surely be some work around, much like AIM+ and DeadAIM, which can remove all the advertisments and popup windows and notifications and other ridicuilous excesses in AIM.

Re:why?

[Just Some Guy]

How many people do you know who are running IM clients they've written themselves?

I do. Or more correctly, the company I work for runs the IM client that I wrote. Why? Because we wanted to add web accessibility to our IM system, and it was nearly trivial to throw that onto our Zope server. What's the going rate for integrating MSN or Yahoo! onto a pre-existing Unix web server these days?

Yeah, I realize that this is a very atypical situation, but just because you don't know someone who's written their own client doesn't mean that noone has. There are a lot of niches where Jabber scales down brilliantly, but where the old, closed systems don't seem to scale down at all.

Re:why?

[1000StonedMonkeys]

I run an IM client that someone else wrote: gaim.

I think you'll find this is true of quite a lot of people. The benefit of an open protocol for most people isn't that they can write their own client, it's that they will have numerous clients to chose from and they can take their pick. With a closed system like AIM or Yahoo, you still have the unofficial clients, but you have to worry about the networks purposely breaking them every once in a while.

I mean, face it, the official AIM client is a complete and utter piece of shit (only surpassed in crappyness by the official ICQ client, which is why ICQ lost my business). I can't comment on the Yahoo client, as I've never used it, but let's just say I don't expect much. If you're still running an official client, I feel sorry for you. Unless you like adds.

The reason people will switch is because they're already running Gaim or Trillian and adding another network is just as simple as adding some contact info into a configuration dialog. Eventually people will run out reasons to use the closed networks.

Re:why?

[Beale]

At least with an open protocol, over half the clients for it might properly support its file transfer features.

Re:why?

[naily]

Let's face it, now google have floated, they have a public obligation (albeit minor) to innovate, to grow beyond search. Given their infrastructure, a webOS has been the most obvious suggestion. Just as any modern OS needs the key comms tools: email (asynchronous) and IM (synchronous text/voice/vid), so does a webOS.

The sooner we stop these ludicrous closed IM systems, the better. Could you imagine having 4 phones in your house for different telcos?

Re:why?

[xenocytekron]

You're wrong, of course. The reason tons of Linux/Unix users write shell scripts is because the majority of users who would write shell scripts, use Linux/Unix. And the fact is that the majority of computer users run windows, and the majority of windows users do not have any need to write shell scripts, not to mention the knowledge necessary to do such a thing.

Re:why?

[black mariah]

I'm sorry to inform you that your argument makes too much sense. Please hand over your Slashdot membership card and vacate the premises.

Thank you,
Management

Re:why?

[aggiefalcon01]

If Google is going to get their IM network to take off, it's going to take something about existing IM networks that can similarly simultaneously annoy you and all your friends into switching. I'm not sure what it's going to be, but it'll probably have to be something stronger than the lure of having everyone code their own client.

Like popup advertisements? I wouldn't mind a VERY few text ads appearing in the bottom corner of my IM windows. Popup image ads, and the useless AIM Today screen (and similar, on other networks) annoy the heck out of me, and make me pine for a better alternative.

Re:why?

[timmyf2371]

Of course, because Gaim is so heavily marketed and promoted it has such a good chance of becoming the standard instant messenging service with the majority of internet users.

[/sarcasm]

I use Gaim when using a Linux-based computer - with over 512mb RAM on my Windows machine, I have no problems in running MSN, Aol Messenger, and IRC with no noticable performance drop - and therefore Gaim (the Windows version) would be a poor alternative in my eyes.

For the record, I have no problems in using a Jabber-based IM, or one which supports all protocols - but the implementation must be better and accessible to the entire internet population than Gaim currently is.

Re:why?

[swherdman]

Oh so the google bot will be reading our messages in hopes of supplying adds related to what i am sending messages to people about?

Re:why?

[galfy]

If you think IM client with web interface is good idea you can start testing Laffer http://laffer.sf.net/ which is open source project and work quite well for such new project.

Re:why?

[danielsfca2]

> In fact, I really can't think of a single down side to using a webapp for instant messaging.

Ok. I'll help you:

- I don't want a damn browser running all the time just to have access to IM!
- I don't want to have to be online just to review a chat log!
- Either "A," "B," or "C" below:
--A. On MSIE/Win, every time MSIE crashes, I'd prefer it not take down my IM client too. And vice versa.
--B. On non-msie/Win, I'd like to have a notification icon in the "tray."
--C. On my Mac, I'd prefer the IM client have its own Dock icon rather than being yet another browser window. I'd also like a menu-bar extra (similar to MS "tray" icons).
- I'd like sound notifications, and little temporary pop-up notifications. And not little browser popups. How are you going to handle notifications? Just to get sound, you'd need to be running a damn plugin or FLASH just to provide a sound notification! Holy bloat, batman!
- Maybe I'd like to run a script locally when a certain contact signs on. How could you securely implement a browser-based IM client that could do that?
- The same reason I hate the webmail-as-the-only-interface-to-email trend--I don't want to have to load a bunch of redundant and inefficient HTML and ads for every single message I open, every time I look back at the inbox. But change "message I open" to "message I send or receive."
- Maybe I'd like audio and video chat. No, WITHOUT a bunch of unreliable and highly unstable browser "plugins" or ActiveX controls.
- One refresh of the buddy-list window goes bad and you're looking at an error message in your buddy-list window instead of an IM client. A real client can continue trying to reconnect.
- Unlike e-mail, IM requires lots of dynamic-ness. So you can guarantee yourself that if ANYONE implements a web-based, feature-rich IM client, it'll be highly proprietary. Read "highly-IE-only."
- And if you're going to use Java to do achieve some of those aims without stooping to stupid ActiveX, IE lock-in, etc? Why not just offer it as a normal executable too then?

> Personally, I don't mind that. At least I'd know that ALL settings and history are saved between machines instead of the classic issue

Whoa there, two very different ideas here:
Storing contacts and settings on the server (like Jabber does): Good. I'm all for it.
Making the interface server-side and translating it to HTML, and making that the only interface to the service: Very, very bad.
You don't need to do the latter to accomplish the former.

Finally

[WALoeIII]

Finally a service that would focus on the messaging, not on locking people out.

ICQ

[Free Bird]

I still fail to see what's wrong with ICQ, except for the fact that all !geek people have stopped using it...
Ah, to think of the time when everybody who used any IM program used ICQ. Those were the days...

Re:ICQ

[Anonymous Coward]

We live in a world of fads and ICQ was a fad. When the early adopters started gloating about their low low ICQ #'s it got on some people's nerves and it just started to go away.

That said, I never used ICQ. The fact that you needed to actually have a # to chat with someone was insanely stupid. AIM and MSN caught on because remembering "sexylady69" was easier than remember "42542432". What if I confused her for "KolageLezBian"... man I would have been fucked.

Re:ICQ

[ejaw5]

Hey, this what's your ICQ#?

57007188888

How about yours?

16085588888

Re:ICQ

[Scoria]

Any version beyond "ICQ98" was extremely bloated, and those who weren't offended by the bloat were offended by the presence of AOL, who had acquired ICQ and was attempting to deprecate it in favor of AIM. Many of us can also recall the blatant security vulnerabilities inherent to the ICQ protocol, including "ICQ identity theft," which was somewhat commonplace around 1999.

Re:ICQ

[satoshi1]

You could have nicknames in ICQ, and you could search by nicknames to find someone. So, even if "sexylady69" turned up a few results, it shouldn't be too bad.

Re:ICQ

[Malc]

ICQ? Listen here kiddo, I'm still upset by these upstart juniors using ntalk and ytalk!

Re:ICQ

[FLEB]

There's that, plus the fact that ICQ was the first wide-scale IM client. Unfortunately, it died a death of bloat. The fact that it had a hundred memory-gobbling, lag inducing, epileptically flashing "features" was probably a larger nail in its coffin than the inconvenience of ICQ numbers.

I was a fan of ICQ up until v2000. It had a lot more useful features, and a History mechanism that couldn't be beat. Then, they dropped the good logging mechanism and started adding a whole bunch of useless "search bar" type of garbage that just slowed the program up.

Luckily, that's when Trillian started to hit the scene. The funny thing is, I have Trillian Pro, and it's loaded up with plugins like an RSS reader and all kinds of search crap... but it's less intrusive and more integrated, and I find it to be a benefit.

Hopefully now, if Google IM takes off, Trillian will start supporting Jabber natively (instead of via a plugin).

Re:ICQ

[Malc]

"When the early adopters started gloating about their low low ICQ #'s it got on some people's nerves"

It's okay you don't need to post anonymously, I really won't look down my nose at you and your high /. UID. I promise. Honestly. >-)

Re:ICQ

[Solosoft]

You know what made ICQ ? The search. ICQ has / had an AMAZING search. You wanted to find someone all you had to do is look. There e-mail name etc etc. I think it's the spam that hit people HARD. I remember connecting and constantly getting those "forward this to everyone thing" and later on even like spam spam. "Click here for hot girls" etc etc.

Your comment on not remembering ICQ is quite strange. EVERY time I bring up ICQ everyone remembers there number. I know mine is 26262929 (lucked out on that one). It's a simple string of numbers that most people can remember.

By the time ICQ had server side lists, and supported firewalls as mentioned above. MSN and AIM kicked in.

I know in norhtern ontario the thing to use is MSN. Everyone and there dog has a MSN account and uses it to chat. I know noone that I physicaly meet who use AIM or ICQ or even yahoo in that matter.

Most of the convienece is hotmail. Most people and there dog have a hotmail account. Why not simply sign in with MSN and boom your hotmail is all nice and simple with a messaging app.

Don't want to have a hotmail account. Click Here and simply add your e-mail address (They just simply mail you a URL to click). Then sign onto MSN with your new mail address.

Yahoo I find isn't a very nice network to talk with. It's too bloated on the windows end and looks to be a haven for "picking up". If you want a laugh go on one of the romance channels and say your 19/F/Wherever and you get literally enough msg's for yahoo to boot you off. AIM is ... AIM it seems popular in the US but I don't know since im canadian.

Too bad for ICQ but people moved on

Re:ICQ

[ThogScully]

I never really heard about identity theft on ICQ - never really looked into it.... but that explains why I lost my really low UID there... The username and password were just different all of a sudden one day.

I did signup for a new one but never told anyone I knew about it, so essentially I didn't use ICQ anymore.
-N

Re:ICQ

[Curtman]

For one thing, they refuse to help you if your account is compromised. My UIN was stolen a few years back. The ass who took it, spent a few weeks trying to gain information about me from my contacts. The exact same thing happened to a friend of mine a few days before me, and neither of us can even get so much as a response from anyone at AOL. At the time my UIN was listed on some Russian page offering stolen UIN's for sale. You would think that would be something AOL might want to put a stop to since it only makes them look bad. If an 8 character (max they allow) alpha numeric password isn't good enough to prevent that, then at least pay attention to people when they come looking for help. And before anyone mentions the password retrieval thing - according to it, my email address was set before there was a retrieval service so it cannot be used.

Re:ICQ

[Our Man In Redmond]

Hey, this what's your ICQ#?

57007188888

How about yours?

16085588888

Funny, you don't look Jewish.

Re:ICQ

[tzanger]

It's okay you don't need to post anonymously, I really won't look down my nose at you and your high /. UID. I promise. Honestly. >-)

And your point is, #1751...??? :-)

... now I'm waiting for unitrode to post and put *me* in my place... :-)

Re:ICQ

[Saeger]

# write malc
screw you hippie! get off my mainframe!^D
# cat /dev/urandom >/dev/ttyp3 &

--

Re:ICQ

[mykdavies]

How low can we go before those snooty 3-digit guys show up?

Re:ICQ

[sql*kitten]

And your point is, #1751...??? :-)

Kids these days...

Don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll run into the same problem as all other new and supposedly better IM protocols -- "all my friends are on [AIM|ICQ|MSN|...] so I use that".

Re:Don't think so

[rowdent]

Well, considering how many people dropped Hotmail like a bad habit as soon as gmail came out, I think that there's a good change a Google IM program might have the same effect.

Re:Don't think so

[Rallion]

I'll just pretend GMail is actually out for this post.

It's not the same thing at all. E-mail is all interoperable. Different mail services are like different IM clients, not like different IM networks. Being one of the few users of an email provider has a certain appeal to most people. However, with an IM service, it's useless unless other people are using it too.

Re:Don't think so

[EvanED]

"Well, considering how many people dropped Hotmail like a bad habit as soon as gmail came out, I think that there's a good change a Google IM program might have the same effect."

On the other hand, dropping Hotmail just involves telling everyone your new email address. Not necessarily a trivial task, but they can still talk to you.

If people are to change to another IM protocol, it will very possibly have to be able to talk to AIM at least to start. Otherwise it'll be difficult to get the critical mass of people to transfer.

In short:
Change of email is a personal decision; you don't need to force others to change with you.
Change of IM is the opposite; for the most part, for other people to talk to you, they need to change too.

Re:Don't think so

[Kethinov]

It'll run into the same problem as all other new and supposedly better IM protocols -- "all my friends are on [AIM|ICQ|MSN|...] so I use that".

If your Jabber server is configured properly, you can use Jabber to talk to any AIM/ICQ/MSN/whatever user.

Re:Don't think so

[EvilSporkMan]

Jabber CAN talk to AIM.

Re:Don't think so

[metamatic]

Google have the tech know-how to run a Jabber server with the AIM and MSN gateways for legacy compatibility.

Wha?

[hexghost]

Interesting, but I don't see how Google would do it without a large amount of time. Trying to convince people like my little sister to give up her little world of AIM for something entirely new for no real benefit would be really difficult.

Re:Wha?

[bs_testability]

wouldn't she be excited to change once she hears that a bot will be monitoring the conversation in order to place context sensive ads in the margin?

Re:Wha?

[Scaba]

I'm just guessing, but Google would probably offer the ability to connect to the other four major services through their client, ala Kopete|Gaim|Trillian. I think the Jabber protocol supports this. And if they use Qt, they could simultaneously release Linux, win32 and OSX clients. (I know they could use Gtk, but why torture us?)

Re:Wha?

[TheKubrix]

Thats ignorant. How do you think Google even came into existence? Were they there when the Internet first opened up to the mainstream public? No. We had crap like Webcrawler, Yahoo, and eventually Altavista. And then out of no where a company delivered to the unwashed masses an engine that was perfect in every which way, and now they DOMINATE. So back then, a couple college kids went up against the big boys, and they won. And now that they have significant capitol, waging war in a medium where all the current competitors truly suck, this is the PERFECT opportunity to enter...

Re:Wha?

[Matt Perry]

I'm just guessing, but Google would probably offer the ability to connect to the other four major services through their client, ala Kopete|Gaim|Trillian. I think the Jabber protocol supports this.

Jabber does support that but on the server side. That means if AOL, MSN, etc want to block Google IM clients from using their networks, they just have to block Google's Jabber servers rather than try and change their protocols.

Re:Wha?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Trying to convince people like my little sister to give up her little world of AIM for something entirely new for no real benefit would be really difficult.

I suppose a good number of people will run both clients in parallel for a while. Then, if more and more people choose Google IM and don't bother to fire up the other client anymore, others will see a shrinking list of on-line contacts on the old client and drop it as well.

It depends of course on how well Google's client will measure up:
- It better have a 'G' in front of the name... instant street cred.
- They will probably get the user interface right like they have in the past: lightweight, intuitive, attractive, instead of the bloated, confusing and fugly interface of ICQ.
- I wonder if they will allow other clients to connect... not so much to replace the Google client, but to allow people to develop clients for platforms they might not have thought of... oddball operating systems, PDA's, mobile phones, or even Perl scripts running on webservers. People have done all this with ICQ and MSN, but it is really tiring to try and keep up with ever-changing protocols and operators trying to lock you out.
- Oh and Google... please please please include off-line messaging like ICQ, instead of diverting to email. I want ONE client on which to receive messages, offine or online.

Personally, I think the world has been waiting for IM done right. Google is large and clever enough to provide enough initial momentum to their IM effort, and they have a good track record when it comes to usability.

Re:Wha?

[aardvarkjoe]

- It better have a 'G' in front of the name... instant street cred.

I don't think that "Gim" is going to fly -- I failed it in high school, and don't want any more to do with it.

Re:Wha?

[Rytsarsky]

But you can use 'transports' (aka gateways) on jabber servers other than the one you are registered with... eg- I use jabber.org as my primary jabber server, but connect to aim, msn, y! and icq through myjabber.net and irc through jabber.org.uk (it's the only one I've found that actually works). In other words, you don't have to use google's transports (they probably wouldn't have them anyway) to connect to the other services.

IM's

[Egonis]

I used to be a hardcore ICQ User (still have it installed with a few contacts now)... but the mass public moved to MSN all of a sudden -- is this in part to the fact that Microsoft shoved it down our throats?

ICQ can do offline messaging, which MSN can't without an annoying add-in installed.

ICQ can do SMS, so can MSN now, but with another add-in... this is all previously achieved technology.

I welcome the concept of Google making an Instant Messenger, please do! They'd probably do a better job at it without almost nightly downtimes of their servers.

Re:IM's

[LogicX]

I'd like to go further and say that MSN is popular overseas and with lots of foreigners. Majority of americans I know use AIM; but everyone at school whos from India uses MSN like its their job.

Re:IM's

[Dark Lord Seth]

Here in the Netherlands there was a move to MSN. It is so bad around here the acronym "IM" isn't even used. People just refer to it as MSNing instead of IMing. I think ICQ still hase a very VERY small market share, along with Yahoo messenger. I think dutch people would rather be found dead then found with AIM installed, though.

Don't know why. I use MSN too, I like it's interface. Nice and clean with a little work, compared to either ICQ or Yahoo. Don't know about AIM, but I know 0 people who use AIM so I honestly couldn't care less. Granted, I mainly use MSN because most people I know use it and because it's available by default on every WinXP PC, not for the interface.

Re:IM's

[jaxle]

Yea but email is a pita b/c of spam, plus you have to know the persons email. Its easier just having to know one screenname.

Re:IM's

[Feztaa]

I'm in the same boat, basically.

When I was in highschool, everybody who was anybody was on ICQ, then I went to university and everybody had a brand new Dell/Gateway/whatever POS computer with XP preloaded that forced MSN on them, so everybody I knew in university had MSN. I just use Gaim now so that I can talk to all my AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Jabber buddies with one program.

I think a google-branded Jabber client would be a great idea; Jabber would allow them to really innovate quickly and it would be a big push for a good technology.

Re:IM's

[pherthyl]

Simple case of a crappy interface (icq) being trumped by a simple one (MSN). Love it or hate it, the MSN interface is very simple to use, everyone can figure it out. I use a clone of it for linux (aMsn) with a couple more features but still retaining that simple interface.
I used ICQ for years but it always seemed clunky, and had a million features that were useless. ALso MSN was the first with a webcam feature that just worked behind firewalls, and little things like games that people liked to play.
ICQ lost because they were perpetually in beta and even with years head start never managed to make a good client.

Re:IM's

[Tim Browse]

Speaking personally, I used to use ICQ, but the interface sucked. Sometimes it seemed like there were no two buttons in the entire interface that were the same height. It looked like a crappy shareware app that had been thrown together.

MSN IM came along with a clean and standard UI, provided a convenient context history for conversations, conversations with multiple participants, and centralised the contact list storage on Microsoft's servers. With ICQ you had to find all your contacts again whenever you reinstalled/used a different machine.

The ICQ interface was just crap crap crap. I'm glad I don't have to use it anymore.

The MSN IM interface is not perfect, but it's way less annoying than ICQ ever was. I found the MSN IM interface cleaner and easier to use than the ICQ one. The day I installed ICQ on a new PC and found that when I typed messages to people each keypress made a noise like a goddamn 1920s typewriter was when I knew it was time to give up on ICQ. Although to be fair, the period when it would silently install a web server on your PC wasn't great either.

That's my theory, anyway.

Re:IM's

[timmyd]

I'd like to go further and say that MSN is popular overseas and with lots of foreigners. Majority of americans I know use AIM; but everyone at school whos from India uses MSN like its their job.

In my experience, MSN handles other languages much better. If I copy some chinese/japanese/korean characters into a msn window, they will show up on the other side if the user has the fonts. But with aim, it is much more complicated and it seems that you have to set aim up for a specific language if you want to do that.

Re:IM's

[ManxStef]

Tell you what I miss most from ICQ: the fact that you could set your status to invisible/offline and *then* sign in, so you could quickly check whether certain contacts were around without announcing your presence to everyone - including the people you're trying to avoid (which is what MSN/MS-Messenger does).

Some of the third-party ones (e.g. aMSN) let you do this, but it's still annoying that the official client shouts "Everybody look, I've just signed in even though I'm supposed to be off work sick!" ;)

IM

[Rotkiv]

this might just be what it takes to make me an IMer

Go Google.

[caluml]

"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
Heh - same as always :)

I'd love to see Google get in with Jabber. Joogle? I use Jabber. But everyone I try to get on there simply says: But all my friends are on MSN. Some people have never ever heard of Yahoo, AIM, or the old classic, ICQ. Go Google, I say. Oh, and don't be evil. Although I'll be using SSL and GPG over Jabber, as usual.

Re:Go Google.

[bbk]

It would be obviously named "Gibba", so when you refer to it you sound like Mr. T.

"I pity the fool who doesn't use Gibba Jabber!"

- bbk

Wishful thinking

[sessamoid]

This isn't even a rumor. It's basically one guy saying he wishes Google would start a Jabber-based messaging service. How is this front page material?

Re:Wishful thinking

[TopShelf]

Well, it fits right in with the Star Wars fanboy-heard-a-rumor story posted earlier today...

Re:Wishful thinking

[oneiron]

Planting seeds... I'm sure more than a few google employees read slashdot. What better way to prod them into jumping into the IM game than providing them with a nice healthy slashdot-debate to read over? We just took care of their proposal meeting for them.

Sure, it's not news, but since when is slashdot about news?

They forget

[agent dero]

AIM is already very deeply embedded with many people, even some corporations use it.

Jabber's been around, along with MSN, and Yahoo, still most people I know (personal and online life) use AIM.

You forget that this major ISP that is the largest on the planet, kinda, includes AIM in it's program ;)

Re:They forget

[stevey]

Our company uses an internal Jabber server, and all the Windows desktops have the Exodus client installed upon them.

It's great for chatting to people in other offices, makes people feel a lot more in contact, and it's a lot more immediate than using email.

I've known a lot of local companies using Jabber too - even though I'm sure sometimes the PHBs don't realise it's free software, snuck under the rader..

Re:They forget

[Ritontor]

This is only the case in the US. Everywhere else on the planet, MSN dominates by a few orders of magnitude. I don't know a single person who uses AIM, but almost everyone i know can be found on MSN. It's scary when you pick up a girl in a pub and end up swapping MSN addresses after you've gotten her phone number.

The reason for MSN's domination? Girls. Plain and simple. If the girls are somewhere, the boys will follow. Domination ensues.

Advertising?

[avalys]

I don't know if their ad-supported model would work in IM, though. I prefer my IM windows to be small and inconspicuous - I don't know if I'd like having text ads (of any size) cluttering up my display.

Re:Advertising?

[caluml]

I don't know if their ad-supported model would work in IM, though.

Information, dear boy, information. If they know what everyone it talking about, saying what they wished they had, etc, they can target ads more effectively at the rest of us.

Sort of reminds me of that saying (which I can't properly remember now): Beware of he who would control access to information, for in his heart, he wants to be your master.

How does this fit the Google company quest?

[Nomihn0]

Google's business is to make things easier to find and understand. How would an instant messaging program be applicable to this mission? The question is what spin Google could put on IMing to make it their own. Just like GMail added conversations and the Google search function, GMessage would need a catch.

Re:How does this fit the Google company quest?

[Hollins]

Google's killer app seems to be converging to finding exactly the information one needs with the simplest interface possible. To accomplish this, they're getting in the business of storing and processing our information, and by (so far), not being evil, we trust them to do so.

With gmail, we can search all old emails with the same simple interface as searching the web. Now, add IM transcripts (great for business), PIM information, etc. Maybe someday, they'll aggregate even more personal stuff, like bank statements, my car's service history, and so on.

The end result? With the beautifully simple default google interface, I could ask:

• Show me the conversation with my boss regarding TPS reports.
  
• What did I spend on dining out last month?
  
• When is the kids' pediatrician appointment?
  
• How do I get there?

Think of any piece of information you recently looked up or asked for, on computer or hardcopy. Imagine typing it into google and getting the answer.

It could be really cool, and kinda creepy. MS and Yahoo are at a disadvantage to pull this off because: they're behind the curve on search engine technology (look at MS's recently yanked beta), they'll never take the leap of faith to give users an incredibly stripped, ad-free interface (I know yahoo offers one, but they deemphasize it), and not nearly as many people will trust them with this stuff as would trust google.

IM makes a nice next step.

Re:How does this fit the Google company quest?

[ErpLand]

It would perhaps remove many people's need to have a Hotmail address purely to be able to use MSN Messenger. Less people tied to Hotmail would probably mean more customers for GMail.

I for one would much prefer to use my own Jabber server to be able to chat directly with someone@gmail.com. Yay for open protocols and inter-server links. At the moment I only use it for work stuff.

Re:How does this fit the Google company quest?

[maskedbishounen]

I don't know about you, but I'm not about to hand off all aspects of my life to some company-- any company; yes, even Google.

I have a little safe in my closet. I file all my paperwork in it by category, oldest stuff first. Need something? Get the key, go to the folder, pull the item.

I would want to allow a single company, which solely exists to make money off of me, to do this for me because...?

I'll be my own Big Brother, thank you.

Re:How does this fit the Google company quest?

[DrVxD]

> It would perhaps remove many people's need to have a Hotmail address purely to be able to use MSN Messenger.

Except, of course, you don't neet a hotmail (or msn.com) address to use MSN messenger. It's not obvious, but you can sign up with pretty much any address.

Re:How does this fit the Google company quest?

[Beale]

• Show me the conversation with my boss regarding TPS reports.
• What did I spend on dining out last month?
• When is the kids' pediatrician appointment?
• How do I get there?

And then, ultimately:

• Where did I leave my car keys?

joogle.com taken

[RobertB-DC]

joogle.com is already taken by a search spammer, though joogle.net has expired and could become available Any Day Now. I'd love to be able to one day say "I rescued [a-z]oogle!"... or alternatively, "I got a nastygram from Google!"

So, I'm OOgling the 1,430 entries for *oogle.*, just in case there's one somebody else missed...

Why bother doing a trademark search?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing they're going to call it GAIM

sounds like...

[cavebear42]

One engine to index them all
one engine to find them,
One engine to return them all
and to the results bind them.

What would it mean?

[Anonym1ty]

I don't know if the story is anything to do with Jabber. I mean look at it this way; What would it mean if Google started its own IM service period?

Yahoo did it and what did that mean? AIM/AOL are still here. But the thought is interesting enough as it is.

As for an open protocol... I don't know if it would mean a whole hell of a lot. I like the IM but I also like the ability to use VoIP or Video if I want.

Whatever Google comes up with I can only speculate that the quality of the clientele would be a lot highr than either AOL or MSN. I'm using Y! now, but more as it's the only one I have after ruling the other two out that has any number of people to be able to chat with.

IM has never been about software or protocals,

[Clockwurk]

it always has and always will be "What are all my friends using".

It also seems a bit silly for Google to be interested in IM. Google's services always revolve around searching (even gmail), something that isn't very useful for IM. They could perhaps make finding buddies or finding past conversations easier, but other than that, I fail to see where google could work their magic.

email linkage

[theMerovingian]

The only reason I have Messenger installed on all my computers is to give me a popup when I have a new message in my hotmail account.

If google can popularize Gmail enough, and integrate it with their messenger service, I can see alot of people switching over.

Triple points if they could get it to work with the other messenger services seamlessly. I would rather have one client, and be able to talk to everyone. Although there are probably some legal/technical issues to prevent this from working properly, it would definitely give me incentive to switch to an all-google solution for my personal communications.

Quadruple points if Google bought Vonage or a VoIP company and integrated everything seamlessly. That would be cool, but a little scary.

Why Google and why Instant Messaging?

[Sanity]

What makes Google the right company to do this - is it only that they can get sufficient eyeballs?

If so, there is nothing particularly interesting about this. Sure, any piece of software that gets a direct link from the Google front page is going to have a massive advantage over its competitors, and yes, were that to happen, it would be nice if that software happened to use an open protocol with lots of open source clients.

The fact that he chose instant messaging as the application, and Google as the big powerful company with all the eyeballs is somewhat irrelevant, the same would be true of almost any application and almost any company with a massively popular website.

Of course, if the big powerful company just happens to be Google, the darling of Slashdot editors, then it certainly won't hurt his advertising click-through revenue :-)

Re:Why Google and why Instant Messaging?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Hello? McFly? <bop-on-forehead>

Re:Why Google and why Instant Messaging?

[oneishy]

Why is google the right company to do this?

Simple put, they have the most to gain. Perhaphs you should read this blog about how google probably will move into areas that give them a) more eyes to show context relevant ads or [more importantly] b) move into areas that give them insight into what people are interested (IM's would be relevant here) or areas that give them information on where and what we spend out money (this includes being a go-between for the client and a merchant, or merchant and bank).

So you see... with googles software expertiese in making things easy to use, (and simple at the same time) they could make people *want* to switch to their IM client, while gaining valuable insight at the same time

It's all about driving the add revenue, and for google that means giving more relevant ads (which advertisers pay more for).

Searchable IMs?

[JTWYO]

I'd really like this if it meant I could search my IMs the way Google allows the searching of GMail (as I understand it). With AOL instant messenger, which I use due to all my friends using it, there's no archive at all, so a good chunk of my daily correspondence is lost forever. If there was some privacy-friendly way that I could store all my IMs and search them for important links and discussions I've had, using Google's powerful tools, I would definitely jump ship and try to bring as many people with me as possible.

Re:Searchable IMs?

[mandos]

How about being able to click just one button, and having a log of your IM stored in your GMail account? Maybe take it one step further and have it automactically pull some relavant parts too and put them at the top. For example, any IM with a link in it could be copied to the top with surrounding context, so you don't have to go hunting for it later.

Another feature I would like to see is have Google run queries in the background on my IMs, and at the bottom of the IM window show a few links, say one to a web search, one to an image search, one to a news search and one to a GMail search (if I'm talking about it now, I'm likely to have before too). That would help tremendously in actually finding information. It's nice that I can go search for the info, but having an automated process going and finding what I'm currently chatting about and displaying it to my friend and myself would be quite a feature.

yes, but ICQ had a *HORIBLE INTERFACE*

[autopr0n]

While ICQ may have had some usefull features (feel free to dig through the 450 page manual), the interface was awfull. It got killed by AIM and MSN because they were simple to use.

This won't happen any time soon

[Espectr0]

Still, i would like it to happen. But if google wants to kill msn et all, jabber has to first support audio and video chat.

They are too busy with their current projects. Gmail has been in beta for almost half a year and it still isn't final. And still as a beta project, they made yahoo and msn catch up to provide more space.

I wonder how google IM would shape up aim, yahoo, msn and icq.

Re:Jabber Quality

[Nick of NSTime]

I use Jabber at work. The network is fine, and it interoperates with MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, and AIM. My only real complaint about it is its UI and the way it does certain things. For example, if you remove a Jabber contact from your "roster," the Jabber contact you removed gets a rude message stating that you've deleted them. That may not bother you, but I really dislike getting emails asking why I'm not someone's friend anymore, when all I was doing was paring down a 100+ name contact list.

Jabber also doesn't always display your AIM and Yahoo contacts.

On the plus side, the graphics are nice and the client has a toast feature, letting you know when someone has come online. The chat window itself is AIM circa 1996, but it does the job.

Hope that helps.

As long as they don't call it "Goober"

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

They will do fine.

Note about MSN- Contrary to you folk apparently, all MY friends have moved to AIM. Perhaps there are pockets of users that use one or the other.

Note about offline messages- I have also bemoaned this ICQ feature lacking in MSN/AIM. But really, that sort of functionality is what email is for.

Jabber great because of encryption

[0x0d0a]

All I care about is whether or not I get end-to-end encryption.

The reason Jabber is so great is because of its encryption support. I can load up gabber and use SSL (and end-to-end GPG encryption within *that*).

If Google gives me end-to-end encryption, Google will win me and everyone I can convince over. Everything else is irrelevant. The current state of IM security is abysmal.

That means that there will be a single party that can monitor who communicates with who (not ideal, but not that far from the existing cell phone situation), but not the *content*.

Re:Jabber great because of encryption

[cortana]

And ICQ. Unfortunatly it is simple anonymous end-to-end stuff, so there is no guarantee that you are talking to who you think you are talking to.

Miranda

[hey]

Try Miranda. a very nice open source multi IM protocol client. Including Jabber, of course.

ICQ and Pavlov

[wikdwarlock]

When I was a freshman in undergrad, I (as well as our entire campus) was addicted to ICQ. One night I was fooling around, listening to all the .wav files on my laptop. The default player was set as WinAmp, and the loop feature was activated. I clicked the ICQ "Uh oh!" .wav and instinctively moved my mouse to click the message icon to see who'd messaged me. When I saw no message, I was freaked and looked at WinAmp. Of course, the .wav looped and like a trained dog, as soon as it went "Uh oh!" I moved to click the non-existant msg. This happened 3 times before I figured out what was going on.

Ahh...to have a 5 digit user number again...those were the days!

Re:Joogle?

[Scaba]

I prefer it be called Jaimsnahoogle.

IT was the ICQ spam

[LordZardoz]

I switched over to MSN because of the amount of spam coming in over ICQ. Aside from that, the interface for MSN simply feels better (messages sends when you hit enter by default, simple appearance). While ICQ can be setup to do all that MSN does by default, its the fact that MSN does it by default.

END COMMUNICATION

Use them all!

[randomErr]

Just use GAIM and you can use all the major protocals, including AIM, MSM, and Jabber.

on the other hand...

[Trepidity]

Pricewatch.com and pricegrabber.com are still beating froogle.google.com by a large margin.

God, i hope so

[Lisandro]

I would kill for an unified IM system; Jabber is the best out there so far. There's a good primer at http//www.jabber.org, but basically, think of an instant e-mail; the network stays decentralized. No one controls it, there's not a single server running the show. Not only that, right now Jabber can be "bridged" onto other IM networks, so transition can be smoothed, to a degree. Your own ISP could host a Jabber server for you, with the same username as your mail, for example. Neat stuff.

The protocol is also well designed, as far as i've looked into it. I'm forced to use MSN, and i've already stumbled into the "can't block annoying kids" problem. ICQ is nice, but seems to be dying, and AOL i can't stand.

GAIM

[raquelita]

GAIM is another open souce muliplatform and multi IM protocol client.

I use it in Linux and Win, for messaging in MSN, ICQ and Jabber :-)

Have we found the missing step 2?

[Knight2K]

1. Pick a popular Internet technology
2. Attach Google's name to it.
3. Profit!!!

Here are a few:

If Google made a MMORPG it would rule the earth!

If Google made a Linux distribution with Spotlight-like search, it would rule the earth!

If Google let me host all my MP3's it would rule the earth!

Seriously though, it might be interesting to have all of my IM history searchable, but I mostly use it for one-off conversations about things of limited importance.

Besides, as general benevolent as Google seems to be, do we really want to route sensitive messages through a central place? Especially with the recent Slashdot articles about VOIP being required to support wire taps. Do we want adwords showing up keyed off of our IM conversations? How could we secure such a system?

Re:Jabber Quality

[tiptone]

Jabber isn't a client, it's a protocol. So i'm not sure what client you're using it at work, but it's not Jabber. i use Gaim for Jabber, here at work where everything is Windows or Linux.

Gaim doesn't support all the features of Jabber, if you're a windows user Exodus is really one of the best clients (MHO).

Posters without vision..

[iamsure]

Many posters are asking why Google, what would they add, etc..

What little vision!

First and foremost, searching archives of IM's sucks on almost every windows client there is. GAIM, Miranda, Trillian, AIM, MSN-IM, etc etc. Thats a niche waiting for them - they are the kings of search.

Second, for Google to be universal, they need contact management soon. They need to know WHO someone is. Orkut is a step there. Gmail's contact manager *sucks*.

Combine the two, AND an instant messenger that interoperates between all the networks ALA GAIM, and you suddenly have a complete profile, 6+ potential screennames, possibly a website, their gmail address, and voila - you have a strong awareness of who the user is.

NOW use THAT to improve search results - google for pages that Linus Torvalds wrote. Now google knows what his IM names are, what his webpage is, what his gmail address is, and can specify ALL of those pages containing those items as "better hits" than just any webpage. It can even do it transparently (hidden) for better security.

Taking it a step further, you now have the makings of a web-based contact management system - email, IM, blogs, profiles, images, all from their various packages.

Sounds visionary to me!

Re:Posters without vision..

[Wudbaer]

This would be like tape-recording all your spoken conversations. What do you need to search your IM conversations for ? "Hey, you called me this-and-that on January 24th, 2005 11:23:11, don't deny it ! I got proof !" Yeah. Great. Well... perhaps not.

It's already more than enough that I can find all the shit I wrote on usenet ten years ago when I was young and foolish on Google groups as well as my old, for me long inaccessible homepages from 94/95 on Google. If Microsoft tried this, everyone would be up in arms, but because it is Google it would be oh so cool.

Re:Subscribers and Dating

[Billy the Mountain]

That's right! Using Jabber can allow you to postpone dealing with these issues of control until later on.

Say, wasn't this on Seinfeld?

BTM

IMoogle

[poopie]

I propose the name IMoogle.

It just sounds so funny.

Last thing we need are more applications that have a generic name preceded by x,g, or k (or i)

Can't you just imagine the discussions about rolling out "Enterprise IMoogle"

forget jabber..

[Suppafly]

forget jabber, google should just make an aim client.

Open == more devices

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Open protocols are very important. Consider what happens when, say, MS controls a protocol.

Even when MS writes portable applications, they limit the devices where they can be used. For an example of where this occurs, look at their WinCE family devices. To get a license for, say, PocketWord, you must have PocketPC. To get a license for PocketPC you must have a form factor that looks pretty much like an ipaq (ie screen of a certain size, exact set up of keys etc). Microsoft controls everything through their licensing. If someone was to want to get creative and make a device that looks different or has a different feature set then you will not get licenses for the applications you want.

These licenses are done in the name of "user interaction" ie to ensure that the software works consistently for the user, but is also commoditises the mobile devices and gives the control of the device architectures to MS and HP (their biggest licensee).

To get any creativity into mobile space requires open standards.

google can succeed in IM just as with search

[flacco]

leveraging open source software, google offered excellent, browser-agnostic search with a minimum of clutter and advertising.

over the long term, this can be the same formula for success in IM. there is inertia and critical mass to overcom re: existing IM services, but the jabber technology, being free/open, and striving for interoperability with other protocols for its own sake instead of some strategic market share move, has a lot to offer.

i recently turned on a co-worker's windows pc, and practically got dizzy when the advertisement-laden AOL signon thing came up.

Re:Subscribers and Dating

[wo1verin3]

Let's saying you're dating a new woman or want to date a new woman and she uses a different network

Please, we both know if a your main concern about meeting a significant other is which IM service they use, that both of you are using AOL.

Hello? Google already owns an IM client.

[Elwood P Dowd]

Google owns Hello. This is a photo-oriented IM client that they got along with Picasa, the (excellent) iPhoto knockoff.

I hope everyone who just said Google doesn't care about IM kicks themself in the head. You dumbasses.

Hello is pretty, & it works with Blogger & Picasa. It is good Windows software, which is all that Google seems to be interested in for the desktop.

Re: all the better to see you with, my dear

[Jonny Cat]

What genius it would be to lure the masses into the ultimate information trap.

The trapdoor slams when they have everything they need to control you... the Walmart of the web.

I'm not saying its going to happen. However, us paranoid (for medicinal purposes, of course) civilians have our eyes peeled.

Re:Subscribers and Dating

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a problem for slashdotters. Generally for us, a "new woman" comes in a cardboard box and must be inflated first...

... and your point is?

[arhar]

Will they switch? Sure they will. People switch because they're lemmings. Look at MSN. I guarantee most of the people I know on MSN only got it because somebody else they knew was on it, who got it because somebody else was on it...

So most people went on the IM service because someone they knew was on it. I fail to see what's wrong with this. What's the point of using an IM service if you have no one to talk to?

"Hey look at me, I'm so cool! I'm using OpenGnuInstantLinuxBSDMessengerGPL ... if there was only anyone else on so I could test this 'send message' functionality.. someone ... anyone ... please?!

Apple is supporting Jabber

[HELLO.JPG]

Apple is already working on this.

You can now host your own iChat server. Instant Messaging serves as a vital means of communication for organizations of all sizes, so it's useful to deploy and run your own private and secure IM server. Based on the open source Jabber project, the new iChat server in Tiger Server lets your company protect its internal communications by defining its own namespace, and use SSL/TLS encryption to ensure privacy. The iChat server works with both the iChat client in Mac OS X Tiger and popular open source clients available for Windows, Linux and even PDAs.

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/tiger/

Some problems...

[samrolken]

Yet, a context-sensitive text ad, just like those in Gmail, might prove to be both more valuable to advertisers and less obnoxious to users.
If people were freaking out about context-sensitive text ads in their email, just imagine the reaction to the plan to "scan" IM messages for advertising.

They need to make it available over SSL! (443)

[TheCeltic]

If they use SSL (https), just think how useful it would be to those of us that get blocked by corporate firewalls (from using non http/https ports).

Public IM discussions indexed and searchable

[dotslash]

Google can leverage its search technology by logging "public" IM conversations and making them indexable. Users can pick if they want their chat room/IM conversation public and have everything indexed.

You could do an interview with someone, and have it captured and indexed. Or the IETF could hold a committe meetting in a public chat room, knowing that there is an instant public archive.

Someone searching might find a snippet of a conversation. From there, Google could provide the full thread by moving backwards or forwards from the snippet that was a hit.

Of course, most conversations would be private, but some might choose to have public discussions.
As long as it's not evil.

Dear Google:

[oldosadmin]

Please do this!

Thanks, Geeks everywhere

The article's suggested name for the service

[Combuchan]

Joogle?

I could understand GIM and a whole host of other possible names for such a service, but Joogle--"Jewish Google (or Googling for Jews)" just seems like one of those things that wouldn't pass the marketroid litmus test.

I'd suggest Messoogle but then people might sign up thinking they'd be able to strike a conversation up with the Messiah.

Re:I think the article misses an important point.

[DrVxD]

I used Trillian for a while, and whilst the paid-for version has slightly better functionality than Gaim, in my experience Gaim is far more stable. (And, in a desperate attempt to stay on topic, in addition to ICQ/MSN/AIM Gaim also supports Jabber. (IIRC, Trillian can support Jabber, but I never managed to get it working). And, since this is slashdot, did I mention that Gaim is open source?

The really savvy people use Gaim :)

The more people there are who can add features...

[Chris Acheson]

...the more likely it is that someone will come up with something really cool. If you're not a programmer, you still benefit from other people having the ability to modify the code (or create their own clients, in this case).

Re:Google already has an IM platform

[otis wildflower]

?

Picasa is an iPhoto clone...

Open standards and instant messaging

[Wise Dragon]

Standard-based IM is all well and good for us, the technical elite. We don't want to run multiple IM clients to communicate with all of our friends. It's a nuisance, frankly. Have any of you used Yahoo Instant Messenger lately? They have a lot of new features that make it fun to use. IMvironments are cute little chat applets that allow for different, fun, styles of communication. So also does the ever expanding list of emoticons, translated to icons of course. Audibles are fun to play with, in a cartoonish way. Where is jabber? Still doing IRC-style communication in a window. Plain-jane, ho-hum, boring, boring, boring. Suitable for business, and I use it for that. I don't have the other instant messengers because nobody I care about uses them. No doubt there is a similar bells and whistles arms race going on on them. But where are the bells and whistles in jabber? My wife complains that I can't load an imvironment in GAIM.

There's something to be said for changing the protocol and client at your whim to add fun and interesting modes of communication.

Not a good Idea

[mmatloob]

A GIM (Google Instant Messenger) session
Chat Session Google Ads

A> Hello. Buy greeting cards!

B> How much of Have us do your
your homework homework for $5!!!
Have you done?

...

Already Discussed

[sik0fewl]

Google using Jabber for IM has already been discussed on some slashdot (in comments): http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=112190&cid=952 4999

Unforunately, I was unable to find the other thread I mentioned in the post. Maybe a subscriber can find it in my post history?

I forget if I was the one who originally brought it up or not, but the idea of Google using Jabber for IM, and its benefits, was definitely brought up on slashdot first.

Multiple Services in a Nice Little Package

[merikus]

After reading a number of comments here, it seems many people (including myself) agree that the major problem GoogleIM faces is that if all your friends use ServiceX, you are basically forced to use ServiceX as well.

The answer to this situation, IMHO, is for Google to release an IM program which has seamless integration with other IM services. This is offered in many third party IM applications, but a big Google brand on an application which could juggle multiple IM systems might just be enough to get people to use Google's application--which, of course, would require you to sign up for GoogleIM at download.

It would be a slow process of conversion, but if Google starts out with seamless integration, I think they have a chance of converting a significant number of users within a year.

Google already has an instant messenger

[ElliotLee]

When they acquired Picasa, they also got Picasa Hello, which is now effectively Google Hello.

IM protocal pointlless...

[Jace of Fuse!]

Nearly everyone has at least one name in all of the services, and they still only use one service (the one most of their friends use).

An IM protocal is only as important to someone as the need to keep in touch with the people they know (who use such things).

When it comes to AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Y!M they're really all not that much different, so I use Trillian Pro (registered). My ICQ number is 6 digits. :)

What really matters to a lot of people who actually chat is the chat features of these clients.

IRC of course being the most opened, it has it's obvious problems though many people it enough to cope with them.

ICQ's chat has always and still sucks.

AIM's chat has very few selectable rooms of interest and entering them results in joining a chat room with about 5893493847 bots and 2 live people that don't know how to say anything but "ASL".

MSN's chat isn't all that great either, and most of the people I do know who generally use it at all complain about it most of the time.

The last remaining one worth mentioning then would be Yahoo chatrooms. Yahoo chat rooms have the most topics, including some divided by geographic location. They support voice in the room (a real plus) and though the bots are bad they're easily spotted.

Overall, I can honestly say I think Yahoo's chat rooms are the best of the major services though they too have serious problems. For starters, you almost HAVE to use a 3rd party client such as YahElite (Only available for Windows, but runs in Wine just fine) to stay safe from skript-kiddie boot-codes. And you will get private messages from tons of bots. Most importantly though, creating private rooms will not grant the person who created the room any kind of special room privileges so the rooms go mostly unmoderated. For some people this might be undesirable.

That's why this whole thing has been so high on my mind lately. Because I do like to chat and as I see it none of the chat services are perfect.

What's needed is a chat service that...

1. Is free or inexpensive.
2. Is opened (and possibly opened source at both the server and client levels).
3. Supports voice and webcams.
4. Supports user level moderation and room creation.
5. Supports a structured and oragnized listing of the rooms (similar to Yahoo's) to better bring together people that desire chat on specific subjects. (IRC's ungodly long list of seemingly random rooms just never really has cut it).
6. Is safe from exploits and boots.
7. Is cross platform.
8. Doesn't suck.

I have a lot of ideas on how a service like this could be done, but how to do it without either ungodly amounts of capitol or without making the system expensive to users is something I often ponder.

Even starting an opened source project to do this has the major issue of running the master servers for the service, something that a free and opened source project probably couldn't afford to do for long if the service ever got popular.

Chat is still a largely unsatisfied niche, since nobody has really done it right. Instant messages are so 90's. Someone needs to take chat to the next level, and Google could do it if they gave it some thought.

Good Business, but...

[General_Tso]

If Google wants to hock more ads, it's a good business idea. But, and I'm sure this is redundant, don't we all want fewer protocols already...

So now Google owns you

[lcsjk]

If Google is big enough to run most of the others out of existence, then Google will be in the position to dictate everything about instant messaging, and its just a matter of time before it turns into an unwanted, undesirable "control" of your messaging service. Ad pushing and maybe even a "pay for" special service might be a part sometime.