Google’s IM component, Google Talk announced yesterday that it has launched open federation for the service.
Sounds like Star Trek, but it’s not. As the post mentions, federated systems allow different services to talk to each other, like email and phones — you don’t have to belong to the same domain, for example, to be able to send email to each other.
The Google Talk service uses XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), which allows clients using the same protocol connect to each other. Interestingly, home-brewed Chikka is mentioned as part of the open federation that Google Talk will be connecting with. Google Talk says,
We currently support open federation with any service provider that supports the industry standard XMPP protocol. This includes Earthlink, Gizmo Project, Tiscali, Netease, Chikka, MediaRing, and thousands of other ISPs, universities, corporations and individual users. (emphasis mine)
What this means for us mere mortals is that we will be able to communicate with other people on a different service as long as they talk the same language (XMPP), without signing up for that service: one account, one service, multiple connections.
I don’t use Google Talk that much (and I haven’t tried its voice capability), but it’s worth looking into. And for those who want to implement an XMPP-compliant IM service, there are plenty of resources (Jabber is one) out there. It’s open source, by the way.
8 comments
just tested it with my public jabber server and it works 🙂 i got them adding each other as buddies and talking in no time.
this is great for groups (like companies) who already use xmpp-based im in their networks.
i used to have jabber on Brosia, my smartphone. Worked very well back then, at a reasonable GPRS cost too.
I like it that Google is leading an open playground. They could (if they wanted) play bully and keep everybody out of the playground.
ka edong
Why bully when they can index conversations and serve relevant ads?
no comment..
“then why are you here..?”
i dunno.. linking i guess..
how can i use google talk in Window Me
please give me the suggestion? as soon as possible
ka edong ask ko lng f my alm kau pwd gmtin to call in phillippines unlimited pc to cp..tnx