IM is obviously a growing part of computing and the internet. It will not go away. But, with all the different corporate owned systems of IM, what do you pick? Which will be victorious? The commercial/consumer IM systems will stay dead even, or just dead. Only a public format will win. And to do that, it has to be able to be used by everyone.

I propose the merger of IM and E-mail protocols. An IM system which works within traditional e-mail protocols such as pop3 and smtp. Specially adapted software could recognize certain field values as part of an IM conversation, but legacy e-mail reading would still read the messages.

And, email already can do file sends, which could travel over to voice-messages people love so much. The e-mails could also initiate connections between other programs, like ICQ's Game connection kinda-thingy.

The only problem is the speed of email, connecting to the mailbox all the time takes too much.. time. It would still work of course. But, seperate from this IM thing, we would need a new email protocol to allow both sending and recieving of emails. The client would keep a constant connection to the server for instant arrival of messages and instant sending, and each transfer would occure seperately, so as to allow large emails (with files perhaps) to download while several smaller emails download at the same time.
-- ironfroggy, Dec 07 2001

Gartner on IM war http://iwsun4.infow...newwar.xml?p=br&s=1
Conflict between AOL and MS over standards. [pottedstu, Dec 07 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Latest on IM War http://www.zdnet.co...586,5099055,00.html
From ZDNet. [pottedstu, Dec 07 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Open IM Architecture Design http://aim.aol.com/openim/
[egnor, Dec 07 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

IETF Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol http://www.imppwg.org/
[egnor, Dec 07 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

IRC http://www.irchelp.org/
The original open instant messaging system. [egnor, Dec 07 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Jerkcity http://www.jerkcity.com/
Comic Chat in action. Warning: not worksafe. [egnor, Dec 07 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Microsoft Chat http://www.microsof...e=613&subid=22&pg=1
The application formerly know as Comic Chat. [Aristotle, Dec 07 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Self-explanatory idea names. http://www.halfbake..._20names#1007705885
Something this idea is NOT. [StarChaser, Dec 08 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Phone http://www.her.ph
Well, option a) is use your phone the normal way... its low tech, but leaves your hands largely free... or b) the phone messaging way. I'll bet you have your mobile phone handy more than your PC. [pathetic, Dec 09 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

IM?
-- angel, Dec 07 2001


(((((see the title of the category this idea's in)))))
-- hippo, Dec 07 2001


Oh, right. Still don't understand.
-- angel, Dec 07 2001


[ironfroggy] looks like he is proposing a ubiquitious method of instant messaging that is backwards compatable with email and has at least some of email's rich feature sets. IM is best known as AOL's wired equivalent of SMS and some people swear by it.

Me, I prefer MS's Comic Chat for online discussions.
-- Aristotle, Dec 07 2001


If AOL and Microsoft can't agree to make their messaging systems compatible now, what chance have we of this? I mean, I'd love it if all IM applications were compatible, but AOL, who have the biggest share, obviously don't see it this way. They cite "security concerns", but I think that's spelt "tying consumers into our products". (see mildly informative links.)
-- pottedstu, Dec 07 2001


[angel] IM = Instant messaging

And why do I care which 'corporate standard' wins?
-- phoenix, Dec 07 2001


Where the hell IS comic chat anyway? I did that a couple of times on old computer - quite fun.
-- thumbwax, Dec 07 2001


SMTP actually has instant messaging facilities built into the protocol (SOML, SAML), but nobody's ever implemented it that I know of.

Comic Chat is an IRC client produced by Microsoft.

(Please don't use "egnor-yuck" anything. Feel free to use [RodsTiger yuck boring] if you want.)
-- egnor, Dec 07 2001


egnor, this system would not require any one email protocol, it would simply fit into a template for emails' subjects, contents, variables, etc to allow extra data to clients which feature the ability to use them. It would not affect any traditional protocols in anyway.
-- ironfroggy, Dec 07 2001


Comic Chat is now called Microsoft Chat. The cartoons and dialogue boxes are still though.
-- Aristotle, Dec 07 2001


The only one not playing nice is AOL as far as I know. Odigo is a wonderful concept and Jabber is very interesting (XML based).
-- bristolz, Dec 07 2001


Sounds amazingly annoying when people start including the extra crap in email, a la HTML.
-- StarChaser, Dec 08 2001


If they do, you can bet you'll need a Passport account to use it.
-- phoenix, Dec 09 2001


I wouldn't be so sure, myself.
-- bristolz, Dec 09 2001



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