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Facebook Messenger Platform

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Re: Facebook Messenger Platform

#201

Post by viraptor »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #182
ethanpil wrote: post #92

I'm crying. Remember when messaging was built on open platforms and standards like XMPP and IRC? The golden year(s?) when Google Talk worked with AIM and anyone could choose whatever client they preferred? Welcome to the future friends when we must pay to battle the keymasters and gatekeepers on their terms to do what we used to do ourselves, for free. First they took my RSS, then they took my XMPP... Who can guess w…

And XMPP has consistently been behind on innovation. I used IRC and Jabber for a really long time. I don't know how long I was waiting for basic audio and video chat in XMPP, which is now a standard thing in almost all proprietary communication systems. People have been wanting those features for a very long time and they migrated away from the open systems because they were consistently behind on features. I don't u…

I don't think what you write makes sense really. Sure, XMPP has been behind on innovation. Companies using it had four choices: wait for X, implement solution in XMPP and publish it, implement solution in XMPP silently, reimplement everything including X.

Well, we ended up with tens of platforms with X, so obviously companies went with one of the latter two solutions. We know a few of the companies did continue with XMPP and modified ejabberd, so they definitely did XMPP implementation of video for example. Yet, they decided not to publish anything, so globally we're stuck in the same place again.

Similar thing happened to HTML with ages of stagnation. Now we finally standardise what's implemented instead of implementing what's standardised. I don't see how XMPP itself is an issue. Don't like that they're slow? Use your own extension and publish it. Either everyone will use the same solution, or you'll learn why it sucks.

Re: Facebook Messenger Platform

#202

Post by e12e »

ethanpil wrote: post #92

I'm crying. Remember when messaging was built on open platforms and standards like XMPP and IRC? The golden year(s?) when Google Talk worked with AIM and anyone could choose whatever client they preferred? Welcome to the future friends when we must pay to battle the keymasters and gatekeepers on their terms to do what we used to do ourselves, for free. First they took my RSS, then they took my XMPP... Who can guess w…

I've been trying to figure out where Facebook chat is going to end up -- the only thing I care about: will there be a way for me to build a simple, command-line client that can use an API/interface that's document and won't disappear over night? As far as I can gather the answer from Facebook is: "Fuck off! This is a revenue platform for us, and we're too big to care about any additional network effects a more open system could generate."

Of the current crop of messaging platforms, I'm cautiously leaning on Signal (it works with sms, I might get some of the people I actually communicate to use it -- even if I would prefer it was more federation/multi-server/self-host friendly) and http://www.mattermost.org/ for an xmmp/irc/etc work-a-like.

I've given up the idea of using IM with facebook users, iMessage users, or Google hangout users. I might occasionally use slack or gitter[1] via the irc interface, or very rarely via the awful web interface (not they're any worse than other web interfaces, but it's just as gaudy and slow and insecure as other web apps, by virtue of being a web app (image libraries, font rendering have issues, they require downloadable code (js) to run -- they can be expected to have a security record comparable to MS office documents with macros enabled)).

I somehow don't see the irc interface to gitter and slack as being good ways to integrate with a single Android app though. Maybe mattermost will help with that, so I can have one app that does sane IM+SMS, and one that does email. Hopefully without the "5 different accounts that can't talk with each other"-nonsense of having separate AIM, XMPP, MS messenger accounts in a single monster-client. It was barely tolerable on the desktop, I won't abide it on my cell phone.

I am indeed sad people couldn't just get together and agree on a sane XMPP sub-set with client-server and server-server TLS, and optional server-side message storage.

But that didn't happen, so now I'll just be without a "big" messaging/chat service (other than IRC, IRC still works).

[1] https://irc.gitter.im/

Re: Facebook Messenger Platform

#203

Post by gfodor »

api wrote: post #179
natrius wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General purpose blockchains are social clay: you can model any economic interaction on them, then people can engage in that interaction without any company's assistance or permission. I think I have a model that incentivizes crowds to direct their efforts and funds like a non-profit. It might not work, but if it does, no one can stop those crowds. If I find a new shiny object to chase, the software will keep running…

The current market cap for all cryptocurrencies is less than $8B, which means that about 75% of all cryptocurrency would have to be focused on the sort of thing you describe to have a chance of competing with Facebook's $5.8B 2015 revenue.

This comparison doesn't make any sense to me. Why should comparing the yearly revenue of a company to the market cap of cryptocurrencies tell us anything at all? They're not even measuring the same type of thing.

Re: Facebook Messenger Platform

#204

Post by gst »

jeffasinger wrote: post #153
herval wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram's protocol is built with mobile in mind: https://core.telegram.org/mtproto - I believe their implementation of server-side is closed-source, but remember seeing an open-source version somewhere on GitHub...?

I don't think this is enough, because it assumes that all clients are connected to the same server. What we need is something federated (like XMPP) and with a design that is reasonable for mobile.

https://matrix.org/ looks promising and like a potential XMPP successor.

Re: Facebook Messenger Platform

#205

Post by ascendantlogic »

Jtsummers wrote: post #73
ascendantlogic wrote: post #49

The Twitter debacle is what really did it for me. As others have pointed out this is sharecropping through and through. You build anything meaningful on this and Facebook has you by the you-know-whats and can pull the rug out from under you at will. Thanks but no thanks.

> You build anything meaningful on this and Facebook has you by the you-know-whats and can pull the rug out from under you at will. Is that accurate? If I build a chat-based application, why can't I build out interfaces to various services? It may not be trivial, since some will offer features that others don't, but what's the principal problem preventing me from building a chat-based application that works over Goog…

And that may be perfectly fine right now. But if they change their TOS tomorrow that says you're not allowed to do that and shut you down because of it you're good and fucked. They have all the users. They have the platform the users are on. Therefore they hold all the cards.

Re: Facebook Messenger Platform

#206

Post by jmagoon »

Jtsummers wrote: post #109
theseatoms wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a way of siphoning users from FB to other platforms, then yes, you can win. Otherwise, when the gate shuts, your users are locked out.

Ok, I must be missing something. How is FB Messenger here anything other than a means of connecting to customers? If the concern is that FB will ape your app, then your app isn't sufficiently differentiated from their offerings. I want to write a game server, say for Go (the game, not the language). I want to make one (or the sole) method of connecting to it FB Messenger (hypothetical, not actually doing this, and th…

Couldn't FB leverage their platform to strike better deals with, in the pizza example, Papa John's competitors? And then shut down Papa John's FB platform (or sunset some critical API functionality)? Facebook could also build their own 'pizza ordering' bot, and then force any pizza vendor to go through that bot (and pay), while simultaneously shutting down any other implementation of the same idea.

Imagine being Venmo and trying to implement Venmo over Messenger now that FB has Payments. Likely not going to happen, and the risk any business takes jumping into a closed platform is huge (especially with FB's history). Just like all of my favorite Spotify plugins that were shutdown and replaced with either no alternative or Spotify's chosen 'replacement'.

Re: Facebook Messenger Platform

#207

Post by wsfull »

knz wrote: post #197
JoshTriplett wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and a plumbing system that requires most houses to own a plunger. Getting off topic for the article at hand, but what's different in Australian plumbing in that area?

I can only speak for New Zealand, but the whole disposal method is fundamentally different. Instead of relying upon the swirling/draining motion to dispose of the waste, water is forced straight down into the much larger gap. Every kiwi/aussie who has stayed with me (in multiple homes) has complained about US toilets!

You forgot to mention the option of half flush or full flush.

Re: Facebook Messenger Platform

#208

Post by otterley »

ethanpil wrote: post #92

I'm crying. Remember when messaging was built on open platforms and standards like XMPP and IRC? The golden year(s?) when Google Talk worked with AIM and anyone could choose whatever client they preferred? Welcome to the future friends when we must pay to battle the keymasters and gatekeepers on their terms to do what we used to do ourselves, for free. First they took my RSS, then they took my XMPP... Who can guess w…

Unfortunately, every open-protocol chat implementation attempted thus far has failed due to commoditization and spam. Nobody has been able to figure out a way to make them still useful to the masses.

Re: Facebook Messenger Platform

#209

Post by thewhitetulip »

amerkhalid wrote: post #163
ethanpil wrote: post #92

I'm crying. Remember when messaging was built on open platforms and standards like XMPP and IRC? The golden year(s?) when Google Talk worked with AIM and anyone could choose whatever client they preferred? Welcome to the future friends when we must pay to battle the keymasters and gatekeepers on their terms to do what we used to do ourselves, for free. First they took my RSS, then they took my XMPP... Who can guess w…

This is one reason why I have been resisting signing up on various mobile chat apps like whatsapp. My family and friends use it and they get shocked when I keep refusing to sign up on these things. I do feel excluded from various online chats but for anything important, they text, call, or email me. So perhaps it is not too bad. I end up saving time by avoid gossip and funny videos.

Exactly, I am not using Whatsapp, I used to use it one year back but then again not much important stuff happened on Whatsapp, it was the same story everywhere, people ignored me outright, only called me when they needed help and never otherwise.

That is why I left whatsapp, it has been a remarkable experience, https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/4336854 I read around 12books this year itself, https://medium.com/@surajp/i-crippled-my-phone-too-1300761aa...

It is a relief not looking at the phone every minute of the day despite the fact that nothing important is going to be communicated via whatsapp, or nothing of that significance to me, everything that I really really need to know comes to me via call

Re: Facebook Messenger Platform

#210

Post by Chronic51 »

LunaSea wrote: post #171
natrius wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can take back the internet. We've been at a disadvantage for so long because centralized services are easier to build great experiences with than federated services. Messaging protocols require identities, and federated identities are user-hostile. They worked once: email. Never again. Luckily, we're in the middle of a decentralization renaissance. Instead of managing your identity on a server controlled by Facebo…

> Luckily, we're in the middle of a decentralization renaissance. Source please. Absolutely 0 non-tech person uses blockchain technology besides paying for ransomware maybe.

Hell, I'm a "tech" person and I barely even know what blockchains are. Many other engineers are in the same boat as me.
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