4 ms·

What I want more than anything is a popular open protocol. I want to be able to choose between 10 different messaging apps on each of the platforms that I use a

What I want more than anything is a popular open protocol. I want to be able to choose between 10 different messaging apps on each of the platforms that I use and they all speak the same protocol.

dllthomas 10y ago
You have this. It's called XMPP, and it's supported by well more than 10 different messaging apps on each major platform.
- peterschroeder 10y ago
  I'll have to check it out! Thanks for sharing. :)
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  The operative word was "popular". The world uses Whatsapp and iMessages and not XMPP.
  - peterschroeder 10y ago
    We're solving for the people who use WhatsApp and iMessage.
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    I wouldn't call XMPP "unpopular". But my real point ran a little deeper. That's the world we've consistently moved away from - interoperability seems to be treated as a bug, not a feature.
    - peterschroeder 10y ago
      > (And no, this hasn't happened yet with XMPP. XMPP has, for a variety of reasons completely failed. We need to let it die and start from scratch with something actually designed with mobile devices in mind) I think we all agree with that.
peterschroeder 10y ago
I can see how that would be beneficial. I am just trying to put it all together into an app.
josephg 10y ago
My take is that if we look at a longer view, right now messaging apps are fighting for marketshare by competing on features. This is a really useful fight to have - what do people want in messaging apps? GIF keyboards? Stickers? E2E encryption? Photo filters? Video messages? A high churn rate is bad for federation - federation requires a spec, and specs are like unit tests. You don't want to write them in the experimentation phase before you know what you're building. Over time the churn will slow down (this is happening already) and we'll probably see a standardish set of decent messaging features that everyone wants. (Good notifications, emoji, photos, low battery consumption, e2e encryption and obviously a gif keyboard.) When we know what we want it shouldn't be too hard to write a spec and start drumming up interest in some decent opensource federated servers and clients. Signal might be a great place to start - but I think we should wait another year or two. Even signal isn't stable enough yet. (And no, this hasn't happened yet with XMPP. XMPP has, for a variety of reasons completely failed. We need to let it die and start from scratch with something actually designed with mobile devices in mind)
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  This has all kind of happened before with MSN, Yahoo, AOl, etc and the corporations have closed it all off again[0]. I'm not holding out hope for the future. I believe it will be all closed protocols and tightly tied to whatever platform owns the protocol. [0] Not that it was all that open, but at least we had third party apps.
  - peterschroeder 10y ago
    In the book, 'The Lean Startup' author Eric Ries actually used this strategy for his messaging company IMVU. Essentially he wanted to do the same thing I am doing, but for MSN, Yahoo, Aim, etc. It ended up being a catastrophic fail in one of the most read books in the startup world. Can you blame anyone for not trying it?! Though this isn't where I got the idea, I read about it the other day when I had some downtime. I accept your challenge and will prove the future is in fact quite bright! :)
- peterschroeder 10y ago
superuser2 10y ago
We have this, it's called SMTP and IMAP. If you feel (as I do) that they haven't sufficiently adapted to the current era, why do you think any other open protocol would be able to change more easily?
- peterschroeder 10y ago
  Good point. Things like that are great for people who understand them, we just want to make it easily accessible for the average consumer.

What I want more than anything is a popular open protocol. I want to be able to choose between 10 different messaging apps on each of the platforms that I use and they all speak the same protocol.

dllthomas 10y ago

You have this. It's called XMPP, and it's supported by well more than 10 different messaging apps on each major platform.

peterschroeder 10y ago
I'll have to check it out! Thanks for sharing. :)
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
The operative word was "popular". The world uses Whatsapp and iMessages and not XMPP.
- peterschroeder 10y ago
  We're solving for the people who use WhatsApp and iMessage.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  I wouldn't call XMPP "unpopular". But my real point ran a little deeper. That's the world we've consistently moved away from - interoperability seems to be treated as a bug, not a feature.
  - peterschroeder 10y ago
    > (And no, this hasn't happened yet with XMPP. XMPP has, for a variety of reasons completely failed. We need to let it die and start from scratch with something actually designed with mobile devices in mind) I think we all agree with that.

peterschroeder 10y ago

I can see how that would be beneficial. I am just trying to put it all together into an app.

josephg 10y ago

My take is that if we look at a longer view, right now messaging apps are fighting for marketshare by competing on features. This is a really useful fight to have - what do people want in messaging apps? GIF keyboards? Stickers? E2E encryption? Photo filters? Video messages? A high churn rate is bad for federation - federation requires a spec, and specs are like unit tests. You don't want to write them in the experimentation phase before you know what you're building. Over time the churn will slow down (this is happening already) and we'll probably see a standardish set of decent messaging features that everyone wants. (Good notifications, emoji, photos, low battery consumption, e2e encryption and obviously a gif keyboard.) When we know what we want it shouldn't be too hard to write a spec and start drumming up interest in some decent opensource federated servers and clients. Signal might be a great place to start - but I think we should wait another year or two. Even signal isn't stable enough yet. (And no, this hasn't happened yet with XMPP. XMPP has, for a variety of reasons completely failed. We need to let it die and start from scratch with something actually designed with mobile devices in mind)

JustSomeNobody 10y ago
This has all kind of happened before with MSN, Yahoo, AOl, etc and the corporations have closed it all off again[0]. I'm not holding out hope for the future. I believe it will be all closed protocols and tightly tied to whatever platform owns the protocol. [0] Not that it was all that open, but at least we had third party apps.
- peterschroeder 10y ago
  In the book, 'The Lean Startup' author Eric Ries actually used this strategy for his messaging company IMVU. Essentially he wanted to do the same thing I am doing, but for MSN, Yahoo, Aim, etc. It ended up being a catastrophic fail in one of the most read books in the startup world. Can you blame anyone for not trying it?! Though this isn't where I got the idea, I read about it the other day when I had some downtime. I accept your challenge and will prove the future is in fact quite bright! :)
peterschroeder 10y ago

superuser2 10y ago

We have this, it's called SMTP and IMAP. If you feel (as I do) that they haven't sufficiently adapted to the current era, why do you think any other open protocol would be able to change more easily?

peterschroeder 10y ago
Good point. Things like that are great for people who understand them, we just want to make it easily accessible for the average consumer.