Instant Messaging

1
Instant Messaging

• Designed primarily for 11 synchronous (in real
  time) chat
• Many products initially made popular by AOL
  Instant Messenger and ICQ
• Currently NOT based on Internet standards and
  protocols
• Many other clients fighting for this space now,
  Yahoo Messenger, Microsoft Windows Messenger
• Unfortunately you cant interoperate with
  different clients. Think how bad this we be if
  email were in a similar situation
• In my opinion AOL is the bad guy on this one

2
Instant Messaging Protocols

• While currently there isnt an Internet Standard
  for IM, people are working on it
• IMPP Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol, RFC
  2778 currently an informational document
• imunified.org, an organization that includes
  Microsoft, Yahoo, ATT
• jabber an open source imitative that includes
  several IM clients and servers for various
  platforms. In February an informational
  document on the protocol was submitted to the
  IETF. IANA has assigned the well known ports
  5222 and 5269 to Jabber services
• Butwhat if the big boys dont go along?
  Having a standard doesnt do much good if it
  isnt widely implemented and deployed
• Now a couple products are now available that
  attempt to let you talk to anyone (regardless of
  if they are using MSN Messenger, AOL, ICQ)
• E.g. www.trillian.cc

3
Windows Messenger Example

• Follow the instructions inExercise 6 to setup
  Windows Messenger