See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP#Message_delivery_scenario
On the subject of federation, here's something I posted to my blog about a month ago; it's a follow up to a comment I had made re the fact that contact pages on Facebook have no drop-down option for generic XMPP servers: I probably should’ve elaborated on my comments. My point re Google Talk is that Google Talk is basically an implementation of a pre-existing protocol called XMPP. The revolutionary thing about XMPP with regards to chatting is that it’s designed so that you can communicate across providers. E.g., I can have an XMPP account through Organization A, and my friend can have an XMPP account through Organization B, and we can still chat. The irony with regards to Google’s implementation of XMPP is (1) that when Google Talk was launched, you couldn’t actually communicate across providers even though you should have been able to, and (2) that most people think of Google Talk as a service in-of-itself (and it’s possible that Google marketed it that way) even though it’s really part of a greater system. That Facebook doesn’t allow users to list generic XMPP providers (i.e., XMPP providers besides Google) on their contact pages is not a big deal to me in a personal sense, but it is amusing to me in a “political” sense. I’m not screaming “conspiracy” but I do find it sadly fitting that Facebook — itself very much a closed network — would fail to acknowledge the existence of the thousands of providers which implement XMPP, while acknowledging an implementation of XMPP (Google Talk) that historically did not communicate across networks or advertise the fact that it could do so. It wouldn’t be hard for Facebook to allow users to indicate XMPP on the contact page: a box that reads “XMPP (e.g., Google email address)” would do the trick. Systems like XMPP are considered important (and increasingly important) by those who care because cross-provider communication appears to be a dying phenomenon. The remarkable thing about “Web 1.0″ (and specifically the personal home page and email) is that you can link to anybody or anything you want and you can send a message to anybody you want. It doesn’t matter who is hosting your website and it doesn’t matter who your email provider is. The same is not true for many implementations of “Web 2.0.” If you’re on Facebook but not on MySpace, and your friend’s on MySpace but not on Facebook, how do you link to him (i.e., tell people you are friends)? How do you send him a message? (Or, how do I respond to President Obama’s tweets if I’m not on Twitter? How do I join the Facebook group for my favorite political cause if I’m not on Facebook? And what are the implications when membership in a closed and private service is a prerequisite for political engagement?) The great irony about “Web 2.0″ is that it is a step back in many ways; even AOL — who, of course, controlled much of Web 1.0 — let you send email to non-AOL users. Certainly, Web 2.0 services like Facebook or Twitter are empowering and liberating in that they provide voice to consumers in ways and on scales never seen before. Yet, such services also involve a loss of user power and user freedom in that there are real limits to what you can and can not do. Imagine, for example, all information and communication on the internet handled by one or two big providers; worse, imagine that nobody outside of these networks can see, respond to, or utilize this content (and let’s say these networks or called, I don’t know, Facebook and MySpace). I totally get that some people just don’t care — everybody is free to make their own decisions — but I do care, and I regret that it sounded like I was just whining about Facebook’s contact box; I was speaking of more general concerns and I should have been more honest. On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:55:10 -0700, RhinoKitty <[email protected]> wrote: > Bears repeating: > > "MySpace and Facebook are like Romeo and Juliet," he said. "If Romeo is > on one system, and Juliet is on the other, then there is no way they will > ever become friends." Evan Prodromou > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.autonomo.us/mailman/listinfo/discuss _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.autonomo.us/mailman/listinfo/discuss
