Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: How Would You Solve the Instant Messaging Problem?
Artem Tashkinov writes: The XKCD comics has posted a wonderful and exceptionally relevant post in regard to the today's situation with various instant messaging solutions. E-mail has served us well in the past, however, it's not suitable for any real-time communications involving video and audio. XMPP was a nice idea, however, it has largely failed except for a low number of geeks who stick to it. Nowadays, some people install up to seven instant messengers to be able to keep up with various circles of people. How do you see this situation being resolved?
People desperately need a universal solution which is secure, decentralized, fault tolerant, not attached to your phone number, protects your privacy, supports video and audio chats and sending of files, works behind NATs and other firewalls and has the ability to send offline messages. I believe we need a modern version of SMTP. [How would you solve the instant messaging problem?]
People desperately need a universal solution which is secure, decentralized, fault tolerant, not attached to your phone number, protects your privacy, supports video and audio chats and sending of files, works behind NATs and other firewalls and has the ability to send offline messages. I believe we need a modern version of SMTP. [How would you solve the instant messaging problem?]
The problem isnt a technical one, it is a business one. More specifically, every business giving you a "FUCK YOU" attitude when it comes to interoperability with different platforms. Facebook Chat? That was XMPP. Google Chat? (that thing before Hangouts and Voice), also XMPP. Countless other systems out there are XMPP too. It works. It works GREAT. There pretty much wasn't anything wrong with it. Then businesses were like "FUCK YOU", and decided they didn't want to cooperate anymore, and so it died.