----------------------------------------------------------- New Message on MumbaiUserGroup
----------------------------------------------------------- From: Vinil Message 4 in Discussion Hi, Thats a pretty vague query you have. You need to add more details to it, and the following maybe some pointers for you. - A chat application can be either P2P (peer to peer) or client-server. The merits/demerits for the same are available on many websites. - Is it an intranet app or an internet app (firewalls, proxies, NATs all come into play here, and are very important design decision contributors) - Next consideration would be the target audience * Kids or adults * Invisible users * Spamming/Unsolicited chat possibilities - Protocol, would you be inventing your own, or going with say MSNP 5/6/7 or similar - What about W3C Standards or IETF Standards, RTP/RTCP, H.323, the works, would you be supporting them - Adding a webcam brings in privacy issues, you need to be aware of the possibile legal wrangles it can get you into - look around at the various apps and the features they provide - Peer app supports -- It is possible for me to play AOE/AOK with my MSN chat buddy, would you be supporting that? -extensibility -- Can I add features like My Tabs/Favorites/News etc to the app -skinning/themes -- Most IM clients have those now. Would you allow the user to create his own skins? -emoticons -- Animated icons, implies GIFs or PNGs. Using GIFs have certain royalty issues!! -Buddy Lists -- Allowed, Blocked, Denied, Invisible buddies are some of the possibilities -Interoperability with other IMs -- What if the user has umpteen IM clients loaded like MSN, Yahoo,Trillian, ICQ, Eyeball, Jabber, AIM, Indiatimes, Rediff, Mundu etc. etc.. (The number is staggering...) - OS Depedence. Would it be a WinApp or targeted for linux/Unix - Security -- How easy is it to break your app and get to the users' registry or format his drive? -- What about invasion of privacy? -- Or Denial of Service attacks -- Or buffer overflows, stack overruns -Updates -- What would be the distribution mechanism? -Scaling --Lets say your app is a hit, and for all you know, 100 million subscribers sign up, how are you going to handle all that load? What abt the backend db, the hardware to run it, the OS, the n/w provider, the domain host, the bandwidth. -Efforts -- How big is it going to be? What motivates/justifies the efforts? -- Would it be in Java, .NET, C++, Assembly, perl, python....? -- What about the testing? --Who will ensure the Reliability? -QOS (Quality of Service) -- a broad term, but really important! Finally, it all boils down to *money*. Would it be free or paid for? What value add do you provide over say Windows Messenger/LCS combination or Corporate Yahoo! Messenger for businesses. The above were just a few pointers. Considerable research has to be done into this topic. With big players like Microsoft (with its LCS/Windows Messenger combo, or Exchange IM or SQL Notification services, or .NET Alerts) and Yahoo! covering the entire gamut of consumers, you need to really think *hard* about your app's USP. If you notice, only a few were a technical points. Those are altogether different can of worms, like whether to use HTTP, RTP, UDP. Would it be unicast/multicast? What camera models would it support? At what resolutions? What about Bandwidth considerations? What about USB/Serial Port or Not yet invented protocol cameras? Where would you save the chat log? On the server? Who will pay for the storage space? On the client? How will you ensure that your app will be trusted to access the drive? I hope the above were some useful pointers. Regards, -Vinil ----------------------------------------------------------- To stop getting this e-mail, or change how often it arrives, go to your E-mail Settings. http://groups.msn.com/mumbaiusergroup/_emailsettings.msnw Need help? If you've forgotten your password, please go to Passport Member Services. http://groups.msn.com/_passportredir.msnw?ppmprop=help For other questions or feedback, go to our Contact Us page. http://groups.msn.com/contact If you do not want to receive future e-mail from this MSN group, or if you received this message by mistake, please click the "Remove" link below. On the pre-addressed e-mail message that opens, simply click "Send". Your e-mail address will be deleted from this group's mailing list. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
