[JDEV] What does een IM system need to reach the end user (Was: Re: [JDEV] Poll about who will use Jabber when Trillian comes out)

[maqi at jabberstudio.org]

On Wed, 11 Jun 2003, Mattias Campe wrote:

> -) Multiprotocol:
> *client-side* support for AIM, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, Jabber

Certainly users don't care whether the legacy protocols are implemented
server or client side.

There have been several attempts in creating Jabber clients that focus on
legacy systems and hiding the "complicated Jabber stuff", for example the
webmessenger(.sf.net) and the "Integrity" Messenger (I should have
mentioned those two in separate sentences, sorry ;-).

> -) Good looking:
> -) Localized:

No one stops Jabber server administrators to package a client of their
choice with skins and language resources. The point is that almost no
server administrator does this.

> -) Basic features:
[...]
> file sharing.

AFAIK this feature should be standardized and available soon.

> What I don't think they (="most of the users", not all the users) are
> interested in is an icq.com-style portal

I don't think this is necessary, either.

> What needs an Instant Messaging system for you alone (multiple answers
> possible):
> 1) file sharing
> 2) icq.com-style portal site
> 3) skinnable client
> 4) avatars
> 5) lots of emoticons
> 6) file sharing
> 7) ...

I fear such a poll is pointless since if asked most people want
everything. Plus, the problem is not that the Jabber community does not
know what to do to make Jabber more attractive, the problem is that nobody
actually starts to set up such a community site.

As with the whole Jabber philosophy, we don't need a "big jabber.org
community site", we need several smaller sites with good setups - I think
of a *good* WWW presentation of the major Jabber servers with some extras
such as customized client downloads or WWW integration of the persistent
chat rooms or something. This is rather easy to set up but no-one does
it...

Regards