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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."
speculates on the possibility
just made me laugh.
Finally a service that would focus on the messaging, not on locking people out.
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...
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".
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.
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.
"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.
Get your own free personal location tracker
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?
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
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.
This space intentionally left blank.
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.
If it works in GMail, expect to see GIM.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
One engine to index them all
one engine to find them,
One engine to return them all
and to the results bind them.
Yes there is. Better Emoticons!
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
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.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
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.
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 :-)
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.
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.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
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.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
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.
Yes, how many times have you said ... "there are no emoticon to show how I feel right now"
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*.
May we never see th
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.
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Pricewatch.com and pricegrabber.com are still beating froogle.google.com by a large margin.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :-)
Yes, I am a
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
My MythTV HowTo
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?
======
In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
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).
Please don't read my sig.
When I write in my livejournal.
"I NEED something that displays my crushing sadness while moping to some dashboard
B-(
Ah, that's it."
The secret to getting modded up is to allways say i've got karma to burn in your sig..
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!
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
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
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
Google Ads in GMail.
It's worse than that, it's spam, GIM.
KFG
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.
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.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
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.
samrolken
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).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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.
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.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
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.
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?
...
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.
This is my
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
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
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.
When they acquired Picasa, they also got Picasa Hello, which is now effectively Google Hello.
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.
> 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.