Jabber Virtual Presence (was RE: [jdev] Google Summer of Code)

[Heiner Wolf]

Hi

>> * Virtual presence
>
>Heiner loves VP, but I haven't seen a lot of demand for it myself yet.
>;-)

Some time ago I was asking if the JSF would be open to a move into the
virtual presence direction. I don't want to force virtual presence upon
the JSF and I don't request 'official' support. I wanted to know if I
could get passive support. I was actually not expecting such a
statement.

There is lots of virtual presence in online virtual worlds. Millions of
users are experiencing VP in these worlds. They all benefit a great deal
from the possibility to be at a certain place in a virtual world, not
just somewhere. They meet each other at virtual places. It is nicer to
chat and interact if you are close even in virtual worlds. This has been
true since early MUDs. It can be seen millionfold every day in current
MMORPG. Now, there is one virtual world where millions go every day,
without seeing each other: the Web. 

With virtual presence on the Web I can see other people. I don't care
about most of the people there, like in the real world. But yesterday I
met an old friend. This was really nice. Sometimes I talk to people
about the content of the Web site, where we met. Typically you meet
people on sites of common interest. I can do on the Web, what I am used
to from the real world and from online worlds. I talk to them, I can
approach them with my avatar. I meet old friends. On my blog and my
homepage I meet people who are interested in me, otherwise they would
not be there. And they like to meet the author. 

Virtual presence can use any chat and IM system as transport protocol.
Jabber was and still is the best choice. But there has been and will be
virtual presence based on other transport protocols. I hope the Jabber
way of virtual presence will be the open one, the most used, and the
best. For Jabber I see virtual presence as a great chance to increase
the number of users and servers. The simple reason is that ordinary Web
users who do not run instant messengers get in contact with Jabber. And
if they meet people, they want to add them the their buddy list. Thats a
fact. This will be a Jabber buddy list on a Jabber server and not an ICQ
buddy list. This is a vehicle to tell them about buddy lists in general
and Jabber in the first place. 

Disclaimer: I am sure some will argue with privacy. Some do not like the
concept of being seen on Web pages. You bet that there are pros and
cons. As a matter of fact there are users who like it. If you don't,
just don't use it. There are new VP users each day and some keep it,
others dismiss it. Tastes are different, please no flames. (Some people
even don't play MMORPG and they are also not flamed :-)

I would like to make VP a JSF topic as much as there are JSF topics at
all. I would call buddy list management a JSF topic, and MUC, and
pubsub. The reason is that I want to establish the virtual presence
standard for the Web using Jabber as transport and not with any other
transport protocol. Therefore I wrote the VP JEP. I kindly ask you to
comment on http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0151.html . Please tell me
what could be improved.

hw
--
Dr. Klaus H. Wolf
bluehands GmbH & Co.mmunication KG
http://www.bluehands.de/people/hw
+49 (0721) 16108 75
--
Jabber enabled Virtual Presence on the Web: www.lluna.de
Open Source Future History: www.galactic-developments.de