Google on Notes

Google Talk client is too simple = Great!!!

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 19:57:33 +0000

Guys, yes, I agree that the Google Talk client is too simple:

no offline messages;
no “spiffy” flash stuff and emoticons with gazilion skins;
no file transfer;
no multi-user chat;
etc, etc, etc.

That’s great!

That only means that we can build our own clients, with those features, and compete. Imagine that, real competition in the IM world. The best client wins. I’m not letting go of my Psi, I can tell you that.

And Yahoo, AOL, Apple and Google will always be able to innovate and integrate services. There is no big risk to them, to provide extra services to their customers, using their clients.

The difference is that, like SMTP for mail, they will all be using a standard and open protocol.

That’s the real issue about Google Talk: they are using something open and therefore, you can compete with them on the client side.

If you don’t understand what I’m saying, try this:

The only thing for this to become a reality is server-to-server interop. :)

Things to discover about Google Talk

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 11:25:58 +0000

This is the current list of things to discover about the usage of XMPP in Google Talk.

What is the signaling protocol that they are using? They are using TLS so it’s not just a matter of sniffing the packets, but it should be available somewhere real soon now :);
How are they advertising the Voice capabilities of each clients? This is another big one to deal with interoperable clients.

Updated as I discover all of this.

Google Talks, bullshit walks

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 11:06:50 +0000

Ok, it’s out for real. First things first: question 15 of their FAQ, first paragraph, last sentence:

We can say this, though: we believe strongly in user choice and open standards, and we are committed to letting users access Google Talk using the client and platform of their choice, as well as to enabling our users to talk with users from other service providers.

Emphasis mine. The entire point is clearly stated in question 16 though: we are in business to open up IM networks. The developer FAQ is also filled with “service choice” questions and answers. But it’s also filled with federation stuff. They want to balance openness with security. I’ll guess we need to wait to see what that really means.

So although the SRV DNS records for server-to-server are still MIA, I suppose its just a matter of time. The subject of SRV recored is specifically covered in the developer FAQ.

I haven’t downloaded the Windows client, being on a Mac myself, so I’ll check the other reviews to figure it out some more. Main features seem to be: no ads, voice (SIP in the future, according to the developer FAQ, and we can speculate that the door was left open to IAX), Gmail address book integration.

For me, working at Sapo in the XMPP area, and being in the team that launched a XMPP/VoIP client last July, it’s exciting to see some of our decisions validated by Google. Also, it’s nice to see some of our regrets also validated by Google. They are not using SIP for signaling, they are using some custom made signaling protocol over XMPP. There is a rough standard to do SIP over XMPP called TINS, but Google seems to have taken their own route. We can only hope the they will honor the community by writing a JEP about this custom signaling protocol.

In terms of Codecs, we are compatible with Google using iLBC, and G711. They don’t have Speex yet, though.

Some reviews, more to come:

Julian’s take: no offline messages, also talks about the custom voice signaling protocol Google is using, and possible iChat integration in the future. This one seems a no brainer as long as Apple and Google agree to it: they are both using Jabber.
Nat’s O’Reilly Radar entry: that get’s the quote of the day so far: make MMS messaging on cellphone look like a W3C hot-tub party.
Russell Beattie about Y! and XMPP, we are all pulling for you, Russel
Download Squad: speculates to new features, we should see a lot of that in the future :)

Some first comments about the client from the reviews:

900kb download (!!), that’s impresive. Must check if it’s just the installer or the real thing;
very clean interface.

Google Talk is live

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:42:55 +0000

Google Talk service is now live although you still get a 404 at the site. I was able to connect with Adium using Jabber as the account type, and my gmail login.

Some notes:

this is NOT jabber, it’s XMPP: Google Talk requires TLS for connection at port 5222;
Server-to-server is not yet operational, don’t know if it will: SRV DNS records are still MIA;
Port 5223 is open and Psi with SSL can connect. I used “Allow plaintext password”, but I’m not sure if it is required;
Disco queries and Jabber:iq:agents return 503 for now;
Gmail address book integration: your buddies appear in your contacts inside GMail;
The other way around: Gmail contacts with a @gmail.com address appear in your roster with subscription none. Current clients don’t send the invitation automagically for now :).
1:41 WET: got kicked, server restart or premature err… launch? :); 2:33 back on.

Some other articles about this:

Smash’s world: I found out from this article
Rui’s take, although he hasn’t updated yet it’s page :). Ok, now he did, but use this instead
My dear friend pfi, to the point as usual :)
Celso’s point of view, lot’s of good stuff that I won’t duplicate here with one exception: federation not good.
Bob Wyman at his best: use XMPP to track XMPP news. And also talking about Yahoo! and XMPP.
A new edition of Jabber Journal, with lot’s of cool information

My take: I’ve been following XMPP for some years now, and tomorrow it will be a big day for all of us who believe that it is a excellent technology for IM and presence applications.

Although the service is still pretty basic, we are still poking in the dark to see what is out there. The small Gmail address book contact is something that a lot of people have talked about, but it might be the tip of the iceberg yet. I personally can only think about a Google-scale pubsub service. Imagine all those Google APIs with a push model to your desktop, using your XMPP stream. Bob Wyman is also talking about this.

Also, notice that server-to-server connectivity is still not there. And that’s the big one for me.

Will Google open up it’s network? I really really hope so.

In the following days and weeks to come, I’m going to find it interesting to see Yahoo, Skype and AIM response. MSN will be fun to see, at best.

AIM already has a server-to-server XMPP connectivity, but only to Jabber.Inc customers and the price point is not something to brag about, I’ve been told.

Yahoo and Skype don’t seem to have many technology barriers to implement a XMPP server-to-server gateway: all their clients share a single domain name under their control.

As for MSN, well, the only domains that they can open up to XMPP is the ones they control: hotmail.com. All the other MSN users that use their own email address to authenticate themselves into the MSN network are out of luck.

This new service, for those of us who work in the instant message area, is not a small issue, and it’s not hype. IM networks have been for some time isolated, closed islands, in which the only ways to interop are reverse-engineered software bridges like pyMSNt, pyMSNt or pyICQ, to name just a few.

But having a big name such as Google opening up it’s network, we get traction. Maybe enough of it to level the playing field.

It’s going to be a hell of a ride…

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