It's Time To Take Back Instant Messaging

Enigma5O writes "The TechZone says the world of instant messaging is a disjointed mess, and it's time for a citizen's revolt. From the article: "The obstacles in this case are three big companies: AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Each wants to keep their networks closed, thereby forcing consumers to use their brand of software and effectively using their size to eliminate competition. Five years ago, Yahoo! and Microsoft were calling for then-leader AOL/ICQ to open their network to allow others to compete. They even successfully petitioned the FCC to restrict AOL's future developments before approving the AOL/Time Warner merger. When it was convenient for their business goals, Microsoft and Yahoo! waved the interoperability flag, but now that both companies have built substantial IM communities with their own closed networks, they have lost their passion for open networks.""

Comments

Take it back from what?

[heinousjay]

How do you take back something you never owned in the first place?

Re:Take it back from what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask SCO

Re:Take it back from what?

[shokk]

Yeah, citizen's revolt my ass. There's Jabber servers aplenty, but lets see anyone join that disjointed mess into something cohesive. That's the real fragmentation. Who is going to gather the resources together and risk a real assault against the big IM? Google has done it - their IM had some real word of mouth behind it at the beginning, but who's talking about it these days?

Re:Take it back from what?

[dasunt]

There's Jabber servers aplenty, but lets see anyone join that disjointed mess into something cohesive. That's the real fragmentation.

While there is slight differences in what each jabber server software supports, jabber servers do talk to each other quite nicely.

It works like email. If I am romeo@montague.org, I can send a message to juliet@capulet.org. The message will go to montague.org, which will open a connection to capulet.org, and then capulet.org will send a message to juliet.

Other than gmail, I can't think of a jabber implimentation that doesn't support S2S communication. After all, S2S communication is part of the jabber spec.

You may call it fragmentation. Fine. I think its a sane system.

Trillian

[vivin]

Which is why I like to use Trillian. It's pretty convenient, and you don't have to have 3 separate programs. It works well with AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and a host of other protocols/clients/whathaveyou.

The free version is good, but if you're willing to fork up $25, then the Pro version is worth it as well.

Re:Trillian

[Junior J. Junior III]

Until MSN, AOL, and Yahoo! decide to close unofficial clients out, then it becomes a huge pain in the ass arms race.

Re:Trillian

[vettemph]

Yep, and the same thing happened with documents, hence OpenDocument format might save the day. Unfortunatly, Microsoft is doing the same shit with the WMV format. It is closed and encrypted and only works on proprietary systems. This was sole purpose for this was to swqeeze FOSS out. Folk are making home video with webcams and don't realise that they are making "closed" movies. It's very sad that the monopolistic behavior is not being stopped.

Re:Trillian

[shutdown -p now]

Except that it's Windows-only, and Jabber plugin is only available in the (non-free) Pro version.

Re:Trillian

[Baloo Ursidae]

Which is why I like to use Trillian. It's pretty convenient, and you don't have to have 3 separate programs. It works well with AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and a host of other protocols/clients/whathaveyou.

But you still have to have three seperate logins to get on all the networks and if you change computers and install it on a new system, you get to resort all your contacts again. You don't have these problems on Jabber, and it lets you talk to the Obsolete Three (AIM/ICQ/Microsoft-Yahoo Messenger) networks just fine. It's also not shareware, and any time proprietary software is not involved is a great thing.

(Not to mention Trillian's got a user interface only a crackhead could love...)

Re:Trillian

[TheDauthi]

I see nothing wrong with the latter: it's software that's worth the amount they're asking, and the open alternatives aren't quite there yet. Now, just for a single plugin, no, it might not be worth it, but if they have a pro version that they are going to charge for, there must exist a line after which they begin charging. As for the former, I am running it under Wine right now. Admittedly, I'd prefer a native *nix port, but as long as I get my IM fix, I'm happy.

Add Skype

[giorgiofr]

Add Skype to the list, for there are many people who use it as an IM app. It would be great if we could unify the different protocols and have one big IM network. I, for one, hate to need different accounts here and there to be able to talk to my friends.

Do away with the centralized server.

[Pig Hogger]

The key is to do away with the centralized server, so no company or organization can control it.

Go peer-to-peer, using each other's IP address.

To discover someone's IP address, just e-mail your contacts a special message from which their IM will update it's table of address. Polling will check whether one is available or not.

Yes, it's time to take back our IM!!!

Re:Do away with the centralized server.

[heelios]

It's a pretty good idea, but what about people with dynamic IP addresses?

"Its time to support my job security"

[dada21]

Its a big business conspiracy to become an uncompetitive monopoly. Just like GM, Ford and Dodge have a monopoly on U.S. Produced cars, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL have a complete monopoly on IM services. Just look at how much they charge for their monopoly service!

This guy is totally right. Instead of these 3 expensive monopoly services, we should instead switch to one single service that we know is far more competitive than three monopolies. It is wonderful that he's so unselfish, I'm sure the time he spends working on his company's (check the link on that tirade) software is donated.

While we're breaking down the IM monopoly, we should also tear drop the fruit monopoly that all those grocery stores have, and just grow and share fruit amongst each other in a free and open way. Come by the farm I work for, get a free orange while you peruse our other items for sale. Screw big bad grocery stores! My company gives away oranges!

There's no problem here. This guy is posing his rant in order to generate interest in his company to better secure his job. We should make every car part interoperable between manufacturers, and make every TV the same size so that everyone sees the same picture. I'm sure it won't stifle development.

Re:"Its time to support my job security"

[kfg]

Your post is well modded as insightful. I wish I could read it, but my ISP does not support your ISPs communications protocol for web posting, prefering their own, propriatary protocol.

Could ya email it to me?

KFG

Re:"Its time to support my job security"

[Tinidril]

So why do you think Microsoft and AOL provide this free (beer) service? As an act of charity? And why do you think that they have had such strong resistance to inter-operation? Bad hair day?

Both companies believe that they can use IM as a platform to make money, or as a platform to lock people into other services that cost money. Otherwise they wouldn't be providing the service and resisting inter-operation. Both companies sell enterprise servers that can be used within corporate environments to provide features unavailable with the free client. You can bet that any "innovations" will appear in that environment and not in the free version.

For instance, there is a limited number of contacts that you can use in MSN, but that limit is removed with the enterprise server. For many people thats not an issue, but I know of a lot of helpdesk and GNOC people who need more than an average number of contacts, and they run into the limit all the time. If I try to create a new inovative service that runs on top of IM networks, I will need to pay a tithe to Microsoft to use more than the limited number of contacts they allow. If Microsoft didn't like my new service they could block it at the server and I would be powerless to stop them, and even today my choice of alternate providers would be quite limited.

Microsoft has already started to talk about integrating MSIM into exchange and outlook. Just one more example of how Microsoft can extend one monopoly into another, and how they plan to tie IM inovations to overpriced software.

Your grocery store is about as lame an analogy as I have ever seen, but I will attempt to use it to show where you are confused. I can go to any grocery store I like and buy a bag of apples, bring them home, and bake a pie with ingredients purchased at any other store I like, and the grocery store has no way to stop me. There is no such promise with MSIM or AIM.

Yes there is _some_ choice of clients at present, but that is only by fiat of Microsoft and AOL. They can use encryption and soon trusted computing to lock out competing clients, or to charge competing vendors licensing if they want to inter-operate. This is not a question of "if", but "when". At some point they _will_ see an opportunity and they _will_ take it.

I don't want to have to rely on Microsoft and AOL to give me permission to use IM or whatever new innovations are be created to use an IM network. Not when it is possible to have an open network to provide the same thing. This is not a case of trading multiple providers for one. It is trading three providers for as many others that want to enter the market. Yes, the core protocols will be the same. But that stops nobody from extending them or adding additional features to clients. Open standards provide a common platform from which anyone can inovate, while closed standards limit inovation to the corporations in power.

The Jabber network really is the answer here, and with Google's new involvement, and commitment to support S2S federation we might stand a chance to make this part of the Internet as free (as in speech) as HTTP and SMTP are today. In fact, this may be our only chance.

Try to look past the next year when thinking about what direction we want our network to go. Less corporate control will always be preferable in the log term, even if it is not in the short term.

Re:"Its time to support my job security"

[rvandam]

Instead of these 3 expensive monopoly services, we should instead switch to one single service that we know is far more competitive than three monopolies.

You're heading towards making a good point but it all falls apart when you start talking about cars and TVs.

We should make every car part interoperable between manufacturers, and make every TV the same size so that everyone sees the same picture. I'm sure it won't stifle development.

It doesn't matter if your car and my car are interoperable because our cars never have to communicate between each other (yet). Neither of us would benefit in anyway if it were possible for us to swap belts or hoses or mufflers or whatever.

But it does not matter when it comes to a communication platform. What if you couldn't call someone because they used AT&T and you used Sprint? What if your Nextel cellphone could only connect to other Nextel cellphones? You would clearly think that it was ridiculous. An earlier reply to your comment was on the right track about ISPs and email. But what if you couldn't email him because you could only email within your own ISP? What if you could only visit websites hosted by your ISP? What would be the point? The internet wouldn't never have developed under these kind of preposterous circumstances. But those are a much better analogy for the IM world.

Then you throw in GAIM, Trillian, and whoever else that tries to establish general connectivity and the "monopolies" fight to keep them out. Equivalent to a third party company setting up one set of phone lines to AT&T and one set to Sprint and then when you (on you're AT&T phone) want to call someone on a Sprint phone you call the third party first and they make the connection for you. Or even better, you personally get both kinds of phones and both kinds of phonelines and then have the third party come to your house and wire up a hacked connection between them. Then in the middle of the night, someone from Sprint sneaks up to your house and cuts the wires. Or else they modulate their phone signal with propietary garbage that only they know how to filter out so you still have the connection but it's useless.

Would you still fight against a citizen's revolt in a circumstance like that?

I will point out however, that what I first quoted from you above is still an important comment. Notice that in all my silly analogies I never said that Sprint and AT&T should merge (with all the other telcos) and become one gigantic conglomerate. Instead, they should still all exist (competition is good), they just all need to recognize that they would all benefit if they established general connectivity (well, all minus Trillian, etc unless you just prefer their interface).

Right now, people primarily choose to use existing IM services solely because their friends do. If they all interoperated, then we would choose them based on their quality of service (just as we ideally do with cellphones, etc). And then hopefully that quality of service would finally start to improve.

one word:

[xlyz]

jabber

Re:one word:

[afree87]

Before anyone says "Jabber has failed," you have to wait for the Google Talk developers to finish S2S support in their server. Then, some other big names might start signing on.

Consolidation in the IM Market

[oberondarksoul]

I think that we can expect interoperability to take a much greater role in the next few years as the number of net users with an instant messenger increases. The number of users that have an IM account today is huge; I don't think I know a single person with Internet access who doesn't.

Typically someone looking to choose a network will want what their friends (etc.) use, which poses a problem for the major networks; once somebody's entrenched within a network, it's very difficult to convince them to switch. Client 'A' may offer some new form of user picture, or so on, but the end user is unlikely to make the switch unless they can convince most of their friends to make it too.

What the networks would love is for people to make an impulse switch. If they can guarentee a user that they'll still be able to contact all their friends, as existing pan-network clients such as Trillian or Adium do today, then the likelyhood of a user making a spur of the moment choice is far greater.

IM Cliques

[vivin]

One major problem is that people tend to have their "IM Cliques". Meaning that some people (and their friends) usually have a preferred client. They usually don't want to switch over to anything else, because their friends are all on AOL/AIM/MSN/Yahoo!. One solution is like Trillian which consolidates everything into one interface. The other suggestions made by the article are good, but I still think it would be a little hard to migrate people from their "cliques" over to something new.

Wow

[Spad]

Wow, this article is right on the money, what with Microsoft and Yahoo announcing that they're going to link their IM networks.

I have an idea

[kingsqueak]

We can call it...

Internet Relay Chat

It will be HUGE

Re:I have an idea

[ilyaaohell]

Woah, wait. You actually WONDER why IRC stagnated while IM took off? Could it possibly be because the concept of a chat client consisting of nothing but a thin Buddy List window requiring no knowledge of "networks" or "netsplits" or "channels" was a massive leap forward in online chat applications? Could it possibly be that, more often than not, people prefer to talk one on one and not in a public chat room with a dozen or more other people? Could it possibly be because IM was the "default" chat method for everyone who signed up to AOL, the most user-plentiful internet provider of all time?

I bet you that 90% of all AIM users (which is tens of millions of people) have never once used, much less heard of, IRC... and you're suggesting that they somehow "switched" to AIM to avoid some arcane technical issue or made a conscious choice to use it over IRC?

Instant Messaging is superior to IRC in many, many ways. That, and the massive marketting of IM by a wealthy Internet conglomorate, ensured that it is now the de facto standard in online chat.

IRC

[oGMo]

Geez, all this whining about proprietary half-assed IM networks. Show people how to use irc! They can use it with GAIM or any other various GUI client. (Or text if they prefer.) It's been around for decades, anyone can run a server, there are a multitude of clients on every platform, and it's entirely open. You can transfer files, and even have stupid graphical smileys and sounds if you want (or filter them if you don't).

Seriously, if people want an "open IM network", fire up an irc server, give everyone GAIM or Google Messanger, and be done with the AOL angst.

Re:Genuine question

[oberondarksoul]

Yes, they most certainly do. E-mail is certainly a very useful means of getting a message from A to B, but it is nowhere near as convenient as an IM, especially to teenage users who value swift feedback. It's quicker and easier to send a message to someone over Yahoo, or MSN Messenger, than it is to e-mail them, plus you can hold a conversation in almost-real time. While obviously not perfect, IM is definitely useful to many.

MSN and Yahoo are cooperating

[nsushkin]

AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Each wants to keep their networks closed

MSN and Yahoo are cooperating

Take the article down

[Bosnoval]

I agree that this article is kind of a mute point. Why whine about it when there's already workarounds like Trillian (which has absolutely no ads or pop-ups). Just switch to Trillian and laugh at all the people that whine about ads on other IM's like AIM.

Jabber/XMPP On :)

[A.K.A_Magnet]

Jabber is the way to go. It's open, scalable, distributed and simple.

The problem are social connections. People are on MSN because their friends are on MSN. Same for Yahoo!

But who from your contact list/roster, in the first place, came on MSN or Yahoo!? Well, users who were advertised by their Yahoo! account or using the MSN client being shipped with Windows. Compare to "Who made you join ICQ, or IRC". No ads, only because it was the way to go, because some computer techies back then told you it was great (well, it WAS indeed).

Slashdot crowd and others, being [...] computer and technologies aware, should be the first link in each of our own socials network to tell others to go Jabber. Non-techie people should trust us on the technical side: Jabber is way better designed than others major IMs services. The Jabber community, for now, is mainly composed of geeks and free software hobbyists. Let's tell our friends to make the switch. It's a little time consumming the first time, but it's free. Tell them to use GTalk (which should be openly federating soon, even with some restrictions to avoid 'spim'..) or any other Jabber server.

There are tons of great clients for Jabber. Under GNU/Linux, you may try Gajim, Tkabber, Gaim or Psi. Under Mac OS X, Gush, Psi or of course iChat. And for those still under Windows, Miranda, Exodus, Gaim or Psi. Google for them.

And they will soon ALL support the feature you want, just give it some time More info

It's your own fault!

[RAMMS EIN]

It's time to repeat my old IRC rant. IRC was there first, has long had the most features (now that voice and video is common on the alternatives, that's not really true anymore), uses a protocol that is not only open, but also an Internet RFC, and probably has more implementations than any other protocol; both clients and servers.

So, if the world had just stuck to using IRC, instead of jumping on the (at the time) overhyped, closed, and advertisement-infected instant messaging, you wouldn't have gotten this mess. As it stands, IRC is still around, and you can even use IRC to access the other networks through services like Bitlbee.

Popular software (among the intelligentsia of the net) like Gaim, Trillian, Opera and (I think) Mozilla (the suite) supports it, so you might already have a client installed.

So, no more excuses, break the proprietary chains and maybe you will be the one to write the next big popular extension. Yes, that's right. IRC is fairly easy to extend, and there are innumerable bots that do just that. You're not a proper hacker until you've written your own.

Re:It's your own fault!

[A.K.A_Magnet]

Ok. Long time IRC user/admin here. And even if I may have agreed with you 5 years earlier, now I absolutely don't :).

I have coded bots, hacked IRC daemons many times (Unreal or Bahamut), coded my own IRC services (bots that fake themselves as servers to get the full network image). It sucks. It's only hacks. Bad hacks.

We need a protocol which supports extensibility in the first place. Something like XML. Oh, wait, isn't Jabber XML-based?

You don't "hack" Jabber. Or if you call it hack, it's clever, academic and well-designed hack which won't break anything else. It's easily extensible with JEPs (Jabber Extension Protocols). It rocks.

Now there's still a huge paradigm shift between IM and Traditional Chat à la IRC. But Jabber supports MUCs (Multi User Chats) which are very IRC-like. I hope someday IRC will remain just as an attraction, a museum for your grandkids "Hey grandpa, did you really chat on something THAT badly designed?"

Don't get me wrong: I love IRC, I have spent years on it, and had good laughs. But it was because of the community, of the general IRC spirit. It must not die. But the protocol is crappy, has tons of weirdness and exceptions, really WRONG word-splitting and is FAR TOO MUCH limited.

It may be a little soon to forget IRC. But I'm working on it. I'm working on making all of us forget IRC :) We need another protocol, because IRC is outdated, but it's stupid to create a brand new protocol when Jabber has everything we need. MUC is the way to go. But it misses the good ol' IRC spirit and population (there are 3 pilgrims on MUC for now). See my message above yours for a good reason. I'm working on eliminating any good reason to remain on IRC.

Stay tuned :)

Corporate IM

[CastrTroy]

I think the biggest thing lacking with IM seems to be the lack of a corporate tool for IM. Most of them require you to route all your messages unencrypted through some server you don't own. Most of them are marketed at 13 year olds, with things such as nudges, winks, and other such annoying stuff. I think jabber could probably really make it's way into corporate networks, if they showed companies the advantage of controlling their own instant messaging. Most employers don't allow IM at all, because using available networks allows employees to talk to anyone, not just other employees, and therefore, are missing out on something that could greatly impove productivity.

Re:Corporate IM

[phillymjs]

I think the biggest thing lacking with IM seems to be the lack of a corporate tool for IM.

What are you talking about? Microsoft offers a corporate IM server called Live Communications Server. IBM offers Lotus Sametime. Apple even has one built into OS X Server 10.4. There are also other companies that offer corporate/enterprise instant messaging solutions, so the server and clients are run in-house.

~Philly

Re:Gaim

[pyros]

Gaim does invisible just fine. It's just a little cumbersome. Click Away: : Invisible (or Hidden in MSN's case).

But you have to log in and then set invisible, you can't log in invisible.

IM

[KNIGH7]

wrong i recently attended a microsoft conference and it seems to me they are now joining the IM communities with their latest products live communications server 20005 and live communicator