Overrun With Messaging Apps
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Overrun With Messaging Apps
1–10 of 39 posts
Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps
#2All of these apps are essentially doing the same things - sending text, pictures, and status notifications. It's a hard sell, but we really need a standard like email or xmpp to allow interoperability.
Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps
#3What really disappoints me about the current crop of VC funded messaging apps is that none of them care very strongly about user privacy. Even apps that claim to keep your messages "encrypted" are closed source and don't include details about their encryption techniques.
There are open source encrypted messaging apps like ChatSecure [1][2], and TextSecure [3] but they lack some of the modern vanity features that users expect and they can seem difficult to setup for an average user.
1. https://github.com/chrisballinger/Off-the-Record-iOS
Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps
#4All of these apps are essentially doing the same things - sending text, pictures, and status notifications. It's a hard sell, but we really need a standard like email or xmpp to allow interoperability.
Google killed Talk (XMPP), replaced it with hangouts, and is suddenly offering to replace my SMS app and send them all through hangouts. I get that this works as a direct competitor to Messages, but I'd really rather just see Jabber or something like it here.
Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps
#5Everythign old is new again. Remember the days of MSN vs ICQ vs AIM etc etc etc?
Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps
#6All of these apps are essentially doing the same things - sending text, pictures, and status notifications. It's a hard sell, but we really need a standard like email or xmpp to allow interoperability.
Google killed Talk (XMPP), replaced it with hangouts, and is suddenly offering to replace my SMS app and send them all through hangouts. I get that this works as a direct competitor to Messages, but I'd really rather just see Jabber or something like it here.
I agree. I'm pretty much okay with any standard, as long as it's, well 'standard'. It just seems a bit ridiculous to have all these different apps essentially doing the same thing, but with different front end interfaces, and unable to communicate with each other.
Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google killed Talk (XMPP), replaced it with hangouts, and is suddenly offering to replace my SMS app and send them all through hangouts. I get that this works as a direct competitor to Messages, but I'd really rather just see Jabber or something like it here.
I agree. I'm pretty much okay with any standard, as long as it's, well 'standard'. It just seems a bit ridiculous to have all these different apps essentially doing the same thing, but with different front end interfaces, and unable to communicate with each other.
XMPP is standard. Grab a client for the platform of your choice [0], open an account on ddg.gg (duckduckgo's xmpp server), and you're done. I personnally use pidgin on the desktop and chatsecure on Android.
The only thing XMPP is lacking is marketing. Multi-billion-dollars-level marketing; shouldn't be too hard to do, right ?
Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps
#8All of these apps are essentially doing the same things - sending text, pictures, and status notifications. It's a hard sell, but we really need a standard like email or xmpp to allow interoperability.
Unfortunately they're no incentive for interoperability. In fact there's a strong disincentive for it.
The value in these companies is the captive audience and the network effect that makes users sticky. There's very little money in producing a commodity chat client (a la Pidgin or Adium).
It is in all of these companies' interests to not work with each other, as their only value is the size and exclusivity of their userbase.
Personally I just SMS now. I'm sick and tired of installing apps just to talk to that one friend who uses it, especially when SMS works just fine.
Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps
#9A pretty relevant article about what myself and temas are working on now: http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/4/5173726/you-have-too-many-...
IMO, interop/federation is going to be a tremendous long-term effort and include many standards, but is definitely feasible, inevitable even. There's a lot of innovation happening in messaging again thanks to mobile, we just need to start taking the best of what we've all learned already and work together to improve everyone's stack collectively.
Re: Overrun With Messaging Apps
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I'm pretty much okay with any standard, as long as it's, well 'standard'. It just seems a bit ridiculous to have all these different apps essentially doing the same thing, but with different front end interfaces, and unable to communicate with each other.
XMPP is standard. Grab a client for the platform of your choice [0], open an account on ddg.gg (duckduckgo's xmpp server), and you're done. I personnally use pidgin on the desktop and chatsecure on Android. The only thing XMPP is lacking is marketing. Multi-billion-dollars-level marketing; shouldn't be too hard to do, right ? [0] http://xmpp.org/xmpp-software/clients/
XMPP is not technically well-suited to mobile devices. It was designed with a base-level assumption that any client will maintain a constant TCP connection in order to receive messages. This doesn't fit well with mobile devices, which spend most of their time 'off' and try to have as little software running concurrently as possible in order to save battery life. Some mobile XMPP clients have come up with various clever workarounds, but all of them are hacks. For example, by keeping the 'real' XMPP connection open indefinitely on a remote, third-party server, and then communicating with the mobile app using a custom proprietary protocol that doesn't have this assumption.
A new protocol is needed. In fact, just the other day there was a story on HN where the original creator of XMPP said the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6849755 The merits of his proposed solution are another matter, though.