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Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know

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Re: Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know

#11

Post by inopinatus »

mmastrac wrote: post #6

We had a clean, functional chat app in Gchat that supported XMPP federation, a reasonably good file transfer protocol (IIRC it could be implemented by others) and a even emoji. When Google dropped XMPP, it was pretty much the death knell for interoperability. Facebook followed suit. I don't get the politics that drives the internal chat product development, but it feels like there's a lot of NIH-related "burn it to t…

The removal of XMPP interoperability was the moment I realised "Don't Be Evil" was just another marketing puff, and not actually a statement of values.

But I think the termination of Google Wave (which was also federated and built with XMPP) was the real moment Google gave up on team communications.

Re: Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know

#12

Post by foobarbecue »

wtbob wrote: post #5
bluejekyll wrote: post #2

I think gchat had a horrible ux. Slack is better compared to a simple to use irc. In fact the only thing it really has over irc is UI/ux.

The only thing Slack has over IRC is a better web client and history. It really makes me sad that it's 2016 and we haven't just updated IRC. Text is cheap: storing every byte every written on an IRC server would cost, essentially, nothing .

botbot.me does just that (store every byte that goes over the IRC server).

I agree -- I was extremely happy with my all-in-one IRC / XMPP app many years ago. Now everything is fragmented to the point of uselessness in the name of a few bells and whistles. Or maybe it's corporate greed. Either way, it's infuriating.

Re: Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know

#13

Post by Frompo »

stormbrew wrote: post #8
kinkdr wrote: post #3

ICQ actually predates AIM

It doesn't say it didn't (that I can see). I think it's saying AIM brought the concept into the mainstream, and I think that's probably more or less true in the US. Interestingly (to me, at least), this seemed to be pretty reasonable. No one I knew in Canada had AIM, except if they talked to Americans regularly. MSNM was very very popular, though. And ICQ before it.

Yeah, you needed aim if you wanted to chat with some americans when I played utopia. Meanwhile the big IM breakthrough among my less technical friends was msn. I quite quickly found a stand along multi-protocol client and I've stuck to that mode of managing IM since when I could control it.

Re: Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know

#14

Post by foobarbecue »

CJKinni wrote: post #9
wtbob wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing Slack has over IRC is a better web client and history. It really makes me sad that it's 2016 and we haven't just updated IRC. Text is cheap: storing every byte every written on an IRC server would cost, essentially, nothing .

> The only thing Slack has over IRC is a better web client and history. I'd say that there's a lot more to it than that. IRC isn't intuitive for new, modern users. Take login and password recognition using one of the many NickServ options, for example.

But you can abstract that stuff in the client with a few lines of code and the user never needs to know! All the IRC web clients do it. mibbit used to be great, and then they mysteriously disappeared...

Re: Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know

#15

Post by ekianjo »

inopinatus wrote: post #11
mmastrac wrote: post #6

We had a clean, functional chat app in Gchat that supported XMPP federation, a reasonably good file transfer protocol (IIRC it could be implemented by others) and a even emoji. When Google dropped XMPP, it was pretty much the death knell for interoperability. Facebook followed suit. I don't get the politics that drives the internal chat product development, but it feels like there's a lot of NIH-related "burn it to t…

The removal of XMPP interoperability was the moment I realised "Don't Be Evil" was just another marketing puff, and not actually a statement of values. But I think the termination of Google Wave (which was also federated and built with XMPP) was the real moment Google gave up on team communications.

The "Don't be Evil" is so vague that it was obviously just for show right from the start.

Re: Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know

#17

Post by pkaeding »

> And there are even still some holdout users on old-style Gchat.

I'm not sure if I'm one of those holdouts? I've been using gchat, mostly over XMPP (using adium), and sometimes in Gmail. I frequently search chat history in Gmail.

I didn't realize that gchat had such a tumultuous history.

Re: Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know

#18

Post by pkaeding »

> And there are even still some holdout users on old-style Gchat.

I'm not sure if I'm one of those holdouts? I've been using gchat, mostly over XMPP (using adium), and sometimes in Gmail. I frequently search chat history in Gmail.

I didn't realize that gchat had such a tumultuous history.

Re: Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know

#19

Post by nextos »

inopinatus wrote: post #11
mmastrac wrote: post #6

We had a clean, functional chat app in Gchat that supported XMPP federation, a reasonably good file transfer protocol (IIRC it could be implemented by others) and a even emoji. When Google dropped XMPP, it was pretty much the death knell for interoperability. Facebook followed suit. I don't get the politics that drives the internal chat product development, but it feels like there's a lot of NIH-related "burn it to t…

The removal of XMPP interoperability was the moment I realised "Don't Be Evil" was just another marketing puff, and not actually a statement of values. But I think the termination of Google Wave (which was also federated and built with XMPP) was the real moment Google gave up on team communications.

Yeah, it didn't make any sense.

It also didn't make any sense they dropped XMPP in favour of Hangouts. XMPP has its share of problems, but it's designed as an extensible protocol. Google's Jingle addon to XMPP was actually quite nice, although it took quite some time to get polished.

Once they had it right and it was gaining some traction, they drop it in favour of a proprietary solution...

Re: Gchat Was the Future of Messaging, but Google Didn’t Know

#20

Post by jalami »

The current state of chat is depressing. The trend on the Internet today seems to be centralize everything. I think it's because centralized systems are easy to understand, maintain and take advantage of. Why maintain a library of media when you can let Netflix/Spotify/Steam etc. do it?

Unfortunately chat is no different. There seems to be a modest swingback with things like Conversations/Signal/ChatSecure, but that has more to do with Snowden than interoperability. I use Conversations on my phone, Gajim on the desktop, Prosody on the server with OMEMO over XMPP on everything, but the average user is going to make an account on Facebook and be done with it.

I think I'd even be happier if chat went the way of Email whereby everyone chooses between three or four big players that interop on a standard. The status quo is the same as any digital storefront. I can't watch a Netflix movie I paid for on an unaffiliated desktop client, I can't chat with a Facebook friend on an unaffiliated desktop client. Maybe we should start demanding DRM-FREE social relationships.

Edit: Enterprise was the last hold-out for this kind of thing. It seems like more and more companies are trusting Google with their email, Github with their code, Slack with their communication etc. "Embrace the cloud" ~== "Cede control of all facets of your business to third-parties".

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