Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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."
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.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell
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.
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.
Hey, this what's your ICQ#?
57007188888
How about yours?
16085588888
$cat
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.
ICQ? Listen here kiddo, I'm still upset by these upstart juniors using ntalk and ytalk!
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.
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!
"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.
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
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).
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
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.
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?
...