5 Reasons Why Jabber is the Best IM Service
The new XMPP/Jabber logo
Until recently I didn’t really see the point of Jabber (also known as XMPP). What is this mysterious IM service, and why on earth would I ever want to use it? Well, fortunately I recently saw just how powerful it could be thanks to the folks at Jive. Here are 5 reasons why Jabber is the best IM service ever!
1.) Open Source
Jabber is not locked down like other services like AIM, MSN, ICQ and etc. Any company out there can integrate with the service without having to worry about royalties.
2.) Decentralized
There is no central server for Jabber/XMPP-based IM. Anyone can run there own XMPP server. This means your company could easily make their own chat service around Jabber, and not only that, but be able to communicate with a host of other Jabber-compliant servers.
3.) You Probably Already Have It
If you have a Gmail or Google account, then you already have an account. Google Talk is a Jabber-based service, and is included by default in Gmail. This means you probably don’t even have to sign up for an account.
Additionally, if you have a Gmail account, that doesn’t mean you can ONLY talk to your friends on Gmail, but you could talk to anyone that’s on a Jabber-based service. For instance, I have a Gmail jabber account that I use, but I have some friends at Jive Software who use Jive Software accounts, and the integration is seamless.
4.) Lots of clients to choose from
Given the open nature of Jabber/XMPP, there are a lot of different clients you can use to chat with people. There’s native support in iChat on OSX, but if that’s not your cup of tea, then there are plenty of other choices. You could use Adium, Psi, Spark, and a number of others.
5.) Flexibility
Additional functionality can be built on top of Jabber/XMPP. There are a number of potential applications for this. Web apps, gaming, file-sharing, and other types of apps are all possible over XMPP. Jive wrote a great article recently that inspired me to have a closer look at Jabber/XMPP, and I think you should check it out too!
I would highly encourage all of you to at least try to start using a Jabber account and consider switching over 100%. I am using Jabber more and more each day and hoping to one day get rid of my AIM account completely. If only you would join me.
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