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The Balkanization of Chatting

Posted by Unknown on from the just-use-xmpp dept.

JThaddeus writes "Slashdot's own (or former) CmdrTaco has a posting on the Washington Post's website where he discusses how chat apps have overtaken SMS. Yeah, they are cheap. There's no telecom fee per message or for some number of messages per month. However 'The problem of course is that these systems are annoyingly incompatible with each other. My phone can buzz with chat notifications from 3 different apps at any moment. My desktop has even more scattered across browser tabs and standalone apps.' Ditto, nor do I want to hassle learning some app or trying to understand its who's-listening settings. I'll stick to email and to occasional SMS."

4 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Come back by Zerth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IRC still loves you.

  2. Didn't Trillian do this? by trazom28 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Back in the pre-SMS days, http://www.trillian.im/ Trillian did this nicely. You would think there would be an app to combine all as well. Couldn't be that hard if it's been done once before.

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    {} ------ When I think of a good sig, I'll put it here
    1. Re:Didn't Trillian do this? by ilsaloving · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You mean like XMPP, which is an official chatting protocol that allows for virtually every method of communication currently in use today?

      Google Talk uses that, but nobody else does, because all these companies like having total control of their messaging networks and have no business interest in playing nice with others.

  3. XMPP? by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No?