Jive Talks: XMPP (a.k.a. Jabber) is the future for cloud services
I found this great because it gave me a way to think about something familiar in a different way. I'm use to thinking about XMPP as just an IM and presence protocol, used by applications that let humans to communicate with other humans. But I didn't take it one step further and think of it as a messaging service between machines, mostly because I was under the impression that polling problem was solved (by the likes of Comet).
If this is possible, then by the same token, one should be able to run a "IMsite" over XMPP, analogous to a "web site" over HTTP. It's just that there currently is no "browser" for XMPP. If there were, you can technically send DOM updates or javascript (or whatever the browser can interpret) over XMPP. I imagine one should be able to take the mozilla engine and tack XMPP instead of HTTP in front (probably easier said than done).
That way we should be able to build browser apps that need near-real-time updates. The obvious one is chat. In fact, most of our XMPP clients are specialized to do that. Other applications are collaboration software, like a shared whiteboard (if sending SVG over XMPP would not be a bandwidth hog). Video lectures with auto advancing slides might be another one. Fleet tracking might be another. MMORPGs would also be easier to write on such a platform. It'd be interesting to see where this goes.
Update: Looks like people already tacked XMPP onto Mozilla
Thursday, January 24, 2008
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ReplyDeleteCoccinella chat client implements a whiteboard.
Google has setup video chat utilizing xmpp with several jingle XEPs that incorporate control over streaming media such as SIP or RTP - technology which may ultimately replace proprietary web media solutions such as flash.
The "XMPP over BOSH" XEP is the first step in the direction of the HTTP/XMPP jumble. And as far as bi-directional browser and server communications go, it's supposed to be more efficient than AJAX.
I wouldn't be surprised if browsers or chat applications begin incorporating more mix-up between HTTP and XMPP, as they should.
From the creators of the original 'GUI' (that's some of the old Xerox employees) comes the next-gen computer interface that is supposed to eventually replace our desktop and even the web as we know it: http://croquetproject.org
Cobalt, a sub-project of croquet and utilizes XMPP as a rendezvous transport in a p2p manor for moving site/world content, presence, and controlling streaming media between machines.
A primary focus of the XMPP federation is security. With the issues that we've all experienced with spammers and hackers in using legacy protocols, XMPP looks forward as a inherently secure alternative to HTTP, SMTP, POP3, proprietary chat protocols, etc.