Plip's Weblog

Phil Winstanley - British .NET chap based in Lancashire. Enjoys tea and tech. Working for Microsoft.

Do we need more IM protocols?

MSN, Yahoo, AOL, ICQ, IRC and now Google.

I have three MSN Accounts and use Trillian to connect to all three at the same time, but why are google creating their own, yet again, more fragmentation is going to occur - we need more people on systems like trillian so we can bridge the gap between the seperate IM Networks, not more protocols.

Well done google on fragmenting the internet even more.

Edit: Okay, I said protocol, what I really meant was "contact list". What gets me is that I can't use my MSN contacts to talk to Yahoo contacts, or to ICQ contacts, I need to keep loads of seperate accounts, the Google Talk thing is the same, I need a Gmail acocunt to speak to other Google Talk users ... I don't want that, my e-mails can be sent from my address to ANYONE else with an e-mail address, my IM should be the same.

Posted: Aug 24 2005, 10:39 AM by Plip | with 10 comment(s)
Filed under: ,

Comments

Jim Arnold said:

It use the Jabber/XMPP protocol. It's only the VOIP stuff that requires their client.

http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html

Jim
# August 24, 2005 6:12 AM

Yuval Ararat said:

i personally agree with the over fragmentation.
then again this is technology branding in action.
if you could develop a cross gap protocol and standartize it then you whould be the train builder of the world.
look at my post on Jonathan Schwartz’s point of view.
http://www.ararat.org.il/comodeties
There is a big need for standartization for net tools. i see the effort coming in SOA, protocols ,like ATOM and RSS, and proprietery software in the first stages of the development like avalon.
when we get to the right standartization of the net we will see service providers growing insted of software vendors.
till then.
google is installed.
enjoy!!
# August 24, 2005 6:25 AM

Roland Kaufmann said:

XMPP is described in RFC 3920-3923. What is the RFCs for MSN's protocol?
# August 24, 2005 8:18 AM

Plip said:

Great, there's an RFC, it's too late thoiugh, MSN is here and it's here to stay as is AIM and ICQ etc.

What we need is for the various networks to open up their boundaries and keep everything open for everyone.

My MSN account should be able to talk to AIM and AOL and Jabber.

That way, the only "winner" will be the one with the best client, which is either MSN or Trillian IMHO.
# August 24, 2005 8:22 AM

Jim Arnold said:

"What we need is for the various networks to open up their boundaries and keep everything open for everyone."

Well, yeah, but blame the guys who use proprietary protocols, not the guys who use open ones :-)

Jim
# August 24, 2005 9:30 AM

Mark said:

You need to watch those typo's !
# August 24, 2005 9:39 AM

Mike Poole said:

And let's not forget about Skype as well! The Trillian people are the ones who are going to make a killing out of this.
# August 24, 2005 10:08 AM

dansays said:

1) You don't need a gmail account to use Jabber. There are a number of public Jabber servers, and they all interoperate. Or, you could just run your own.

2) There are proxy gateways available for AIM, MSN, Yahoo, et al. No need to consolidate client-side.

Seems to me that by putting their weight behind Jabber, they're making things better, not worse.
# August 24, 2005 10:52 AM

David Findley said:

Amen brother. Amen.
# August 24, 2005 9:59 PM

Yuval Ararat said:

not just trillian
http://www.im2.com
i curently see it as better then the trillian one.
but....
# August 30, 2005 11:24 AM