IRC was a different usage model too. While you could do direct messages in IRC, it was a side feature and not the primary use case for it. XMPP, AIM, and the

IRC was a different usage model too. While you could do direct messages in IRC, it was a side feature and not the primary use case for it. XMPP, AIM, and the like are focused far more on direct messaging with chat rooms being a clunky add-on. Anecdotally I experimented with an XMPP server for awhile and found it far more difficult to start up than an IRC server. It was far more enterprise oriented, assuming you had control over the DNS (only one server per domain of course) and with lots of complexity around LDAP or AD integration. This is as opposed to an IRC server where you downloaded the software, optionally exchanged keys with a peer, and started it up. Using XML as a message format was also a mistake, but not one so bad that it would sink the entire project. ASN.1 would have been a better choice.