In terms of duplicating the chat experience that already exists via the Facebook website, the XMPP implementation they have set up does a wonderfully adequate job.

The problem is that the XMPP interface to Facebook Chat is really only a gateway. It is similar in concept to how XMPP transports allow you to use closed IM networks via XMPP, except they are exposing a client interface (C2S) instead of a server interface (S2S). While this approach is adequate for simple chat, it means that the only features supported are features that already exist in Facebook chat—which is pretty much bare bones chat.

When I logged into all of my accounts this morning, I was greeted with a message from chat.facebook.com: "You were marked as Online because you signed on with Jabber."

UPDATE: Official Announcement: Facebook Chat Now Available Everywhere

UPDATE: Added some commentary on Integrating with Facebook Chat

For some reason or another, the concept of Calendar Servers has captured my imagination over the past year or so. I believe this technology could change how people think of time management, but I think it needs three things before it can get to that point:

1. Ability to invite someone to an event who is using a different calendar server.
2. Ability to view availability of someone who is using a different calendar server. (And, as a corollary, the ability to control who can see your availability)
3. Ability to share calendars and events with people who don't have an account on my calendar server.

The key to make all of this possible is something I call Automatic Federation.

UPDATE: After writing this post, individuals have brought to my attention RFC-2446, RFC-2447, and the iSCHEDULE Technical Committee. At first glance, it looks like this may make the stuff I was proposing here somewhat irrelevant, but some investigation is still warranted. I'm not yet sure how these specs prevent abusive things like spoofing and who is allowed to see free-busy information.

The com.google.android.xmppService package has been replaced by the com.google.android.gtalkservice package. This is driven by the fact that the GTalk API is not XMPP compliant, and will be less so going forward. The reason is that XMPP is too verbose and inefficient for mobile network connection, and the GTalk API will be moving to a binary encoding for the protocol between the client and the server.

I'll enumerate the implications and conclusions:

1. XMPP is verbose.
2. XMPP is inefficient for mobile networking.
3. A proprietary binary protocol would be more efficient for mobile devices.
4. The former Android xmppService API will diverge away from XMPP.

I think that this direction is unfortunate, and the reasons misguided. Read on, and I'll elaborate...

NOTE: This post seems to no longer be fully inline with my current position—which is that a new (as of yet undefined) UDP-based C2S protocol using EXI would be best suited for mobile devices. Such a thing would however still be XMPP. Edited 2009-07-13.

I don't want to seem unappreciative, so I'll start out with some good points. Google Talk has energized Jabber/XMPP to a level of activity that is unprecedented. Think about all of the things that have happened since Google Talk went beta: how much of it is a direct or indirect result of Google choosing to use XMPP as the protocol for their IM service? I don't want to minimize this point. Google Talk has been one of the best things to happen to the Jabber community in recent memory. And kudos to them.

Ever since Google Talk flipped the switch to enable server-to-server communications, Google Talk has become my default recommendation for anyone looking to get a ‘jabber account’. Back then, jabber.org was still having stability problems (as it was still running jabberd 1.4), and my own server was also less than reliable. Google Talk also came with several useful features, such as the chat client built right into gmail.

However, I have recently realized that Google Talk is not the ideal, stable jabber server that I thought it would be. Read on to find out why.

UPDATE: (2006-11-01) Google Talk now supports offline message delivery!

LJ Talk is what they call it, and they apparently have big plans—all of them revolving around interoperability and freedom of choice.

For those of you who are still confused as to what exactly Jabber is, read on and I'll break it down for you one more time.

Some were confused, some even seemed upset, but most of the responses I have received have been extraordinarily positive—even to the point of adopting my birthday as the day that they swear off those legacy services.

The idea was pretty simple: The most common excuse I hear for not using jabber is "I don't know anyone who uses Jabber who doesn't use anything else". Well, now they will. But getting a Jabber account just to chat with me seems kind of silly. It can be kind of hard to know who has a Jabber account and who doesn't, even with the Jabber Users Directory. I think what we may need is to create a database which also includes people's legacy addresses as well. That way, if/when you migrate to jabber, you can more easily see who is using Jabber. Just a thought.

It doesn't feel right to make a post about Jabber without also mentioning the recent loss that the Jabber community has suffered. Peter Millard, a long time member and contributor to the Jabber community, passed away on April 26th. My condolences go to wife and daughter. He will be missed.

Just a reminder to everyone: I'll be dropping my accounts on AIM, MSN, ICQ, and YIM on May 19^th of this year, and switching entirely to Jabber. So grab yourself a gmail account if you don't already have a jabber account!

I'm considering writing an eMail jabber component that would allow you to check, view, read, reply, and write email. The first step to doing that is to write an XMPP protocol for email. Think about all of the features of IMAP, with the ability to receive real-time updates and send mail. There are many benefits to doing this:

No wonder I've been getting calls for XMPP/Jabber related jobs...

Update: Apparently now this post is the number one search result. Go figure.

Just trying to make Jabber more featureful.

As I have mentioned before, I believe Jabber/XMPP will be one of the most influential technologies on human communication since the introduction of standard email¹. I've been thinking lately about ways to encourage my friends to make the switch to Jabber, and I've come up with my solution.

As of my birthday this year (May 19^th), I'll no longer be using AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, or MSN. The only way you will be able to contact me via IM will be via my jabber id, darco@deepdarc.com². So if you want to chat with me after this time, you'll need to at least give Jabber a try.

UPDATE: Official Announcement | Official Discussion Forum

NOTE: This is a rather old post, and for some reason planet jabber keeps throwing my old posts to the top of the list every time I clean things up. Sorry for the confusion!