Remember The Milk

I stumbled upon this cute little site, today, called Remember The Milk. It's a to-do list thing. It's generally more silly for me than a real tool, since I have to go there to manage my stuff instead of using a tool on my machine, since it doesn't merge with any of the 12 other bug databases and to-do lists I consult each day and since it's just probably not going to reward the time I spend on it with any kind of labour savings. It's also firmly in beta, and I use too many of those at google.

But I wanted to talk about it for one of the great features it's pushing out. Rtm has this ability to send SMS or IM reminders so that you don't forget something. Seems simple, right? Actually, it's a feature becoming more and more common. However, the AIM and MSN warnings keep going offline, because MS and AOL's IM networks are not open : in order to offer MS and AOL people a service, RTM needs to continually reverse-engineer the secret protocols (figure out how messages are sent by taking apart network data or trial-and-error) which these IM clients use. In short, they have to work at it.

The same is true of the RSS alert system I use. Since Google fully opened up the GTalk network, I've subscribed to jabrss@cmeerw.net, which I've told to watch blogs and news sites, and it sends me updates when those 'RSS feeds' get updated, over the Jabber/GTalk network, which I use Gaim to access.

Instant Messaging (oh, that may be patented)Instant Messengers are today like e-mail was like 20 years ago. Want to send a message from Bitnet to milnet? Nah, can't happen, unless the gateway's working today. You and your friend better both get accounts on compatible networks. The idea that I can send a message - from the same account - to joey@gmail.com as well as presidente@whitehouse.org would have been baffling to an Internet (arpanet) user Back In The Day. It would have been like magic.

Then, like building codes, standards came along for e-mail messages, formerly laying out the format of the message and of the communications. Servers were built toward this new 'simple' standard, and then server programs emerged which could talk to all the different networks.

Let's talk about Instant Messengers. (Messaging? I forget which is a patented phrase) Currently, all the different networks don't talk well with each other. Unlike the milnet/bitnet thing, this is entirely due to design vs ignorance, and while the earlier networks moved together, it's only the threat of being marginalized which has made MSN and AOL move together; for the longest time, ICQ people and AIM people couldn't talk to one another, and both secret protocols were owned by the same company!

Let's talk about Jabber. Know what that is? It's the cute name for XMPP, which is an ugly acronym for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, which is even uglier. Jabber is an official standard - again, like a building code - for Instant Messaging. It says how messages can be sent form one Jabber person to another, and it's neither a company secret nor something you have to pay to see. In fact, MSN and AOL could design a new app with this protocol very easily and start moving their people over.

And it's been out for about 4 years now.

Know why MSN and AOL haven't changed you over to a new version of their stuff which uses XMPP as its communications standard? It's simple: if they do that, you can talk to your friends on Jabber or or YIM without having to make them switch networks. They want you to say to your friends "Get on this network too" before they can speak to you. Why? Because the programs you download will probably be from MSN or AOL.

Which will have advertisements.

Advertisements are business revenue, in case you've forgotten. So the Network Effect makes you bring your friends, and we all get to see whatever crap ads all the IM companies have convinced us to see. And we all have like a million stupid icons down in the little system tray thingy.

The companies aren't stupid, though. Now you can talk between MSN users and AOL users. Maybe they've even got their voice-chat going by now as well. The thing is, it's too little and too late.

Jabber's big supporter is google. Google's put out their gtalk application, and it works well enough. Since, though, it's based around this XMPP stuff, if you don't like GTalk you can easily go elsewhere: The Gizmo Project, for instance, provides a chat and voice application which is 100% compatible with Google Talk. Get that? 100%. Unlike MSN or AIM, they're not gonna stop inter-operating tomorrow. The same is true with the Earthlink chat service, or GnomePhone, or the Asterisk PBX system you can put in your home for $100 (Yeah: you use a phone, talk to people on either phones or internet without caring which it is). The name of the game, in chat like in email apps, is choice: I can use a Blackberry, mozilla or Seamonkey to check my mail, and I can use a regular phone or a program to voice-chat for free on the net, too. The point is, there are choices, if you'll simply allow yourself to make them.

What's next? Jabber servers will become a bit more popular. Like email, you'll soon be able to use one with your ISP's email account, so I can simply plug in Joey@some.place.not.google.com and Joey's internet phone would ring. Soon, the big and slow dinosaurs of the IM age will either adapt or die, and sending messages and chatting via voice will be just as easy as email eventually became.

Twenty years ago.