
Google expected to unify chat under the name Babble - bergie
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/google-expected-to-unify-chat-under-the-name-babble-20130318/
======
bergie
Unifying the various communication channels would be a good thing, and very
much in line with how Google has centralized identity and notifications behind
G+.

However, this part didn't sound so promising:

 _Google’s recent decision to block non-native XMPP requests is the first step
towards building their own closed communications platform._

~~~
cameronh90
Unfortunately, XMPP not a very good protocol. By virtue of its insane
complexity, no client seems to quite interoperate with any other in anything
beyond the most basic features. Essential features that I have never managed
to get working properly over XMPP include:

* holding conversations with people who have intermittent network connections (mobile phone users)

* sending/receiving files

* multi user chat

Ideal scenario would be that Google will solve these problems and release
their new protocol with open specifications.

~~~
claudius
> * holding conversations with people who have intermittent network
> connections (mobile phone users)

I didn’t really try that, but it is usually the responsibility of the remote
user’s server to check whether the user is online. Shouldn’t be a problem.

> * sending/receiving files

Works perfectly fine.

> * multi user chat

Works even finer than fine.

What clients and servers did you use?

~~~
cameronh90
Offline messaging is a problem in the sense that you would expect to be able
to hold a reliable conversation with someone who is intermittently available
rather than getting errors about the other person being unavailable, or
messages being lost in the aether. If the person is actually offline, you
should be able to rely on the other server to actually deliver the message
when they get back. I don't think XMPP has very good systems for ensuring
reliable message receipt at the protocol level. There are, I understand, draft
standards (XEP-0198, XEP-0013) that would improve things but nothing
implements it (at least consistently).

File transfer: Clients I've used are Adium, Pidgin and Google Talk. What
normally happens with file transfers is that either the person at the other
end doesn't know I've tried to send a file, or if they do know, they click
accept and the file never transfers, or if the file does transfer, my client
somehow doesn't realise and the file transfer stays active forever. Usually
there'll be a double-NAT in the way. The only time it does mostly work is
GTalk to GTalk.

Multi user chat: Is very confusing to set up, and while it is possible to get
it working, in practise I've found nobody can figure out how to use it. It's
sort of like the complexity of email multiplied by the complexity of IRC. This
is unlike other chat protocols/clients where it's just a matter of inviting
someone to your conversation.

This isn't even getting into the other issues with the protocol, such as
voice/video/sip/o-o-b stuff, the general efficiency of the protocol and it's
applicability to mobile users (It's not great). I have set up corporate XMPP
servers (ejabberd/openfire) before and am very aware of the difficulties of
trying to get things to all work together. In the end people just end up
opting for something [awful] like Microsoft Lync instead.

------
nnnnni
Jabber/XMPP and CalDAV support are two of the best things that Google has
going for it. If support for both of those are going away, that is not a good
sign.

~~~
BHSPitMonkey
I agree that interoperability with open standards is very important, but your
first statement is beyond hyperbolic. Do you really think support for XMPP and
CalDAV are the company's most valuable assets?

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kryptiskt
I can only assume that Babble is a code name, Google Babble would be a
horrible brand name. It looks off, it sounds off and it has negative
connotations.

~~~
fro
GChat is already a well known brand name that most people view positively,
hopefully they continue using that name.

~~~
kaoD
Well, it's called Google Talk and you got it wrong, so it might not be that
well known.

~~~
DHowett
It's called Talk when it's standalone and Chat when it's in the Gmail web
interface.

EDIT: I was being presumptuous about presumption, so, presumptive comment
removed. Presume.

~~~
3825
I wanted to prove you wrong so I went to Google.com/talk but sure enough, you
were correct. Even the title of the html document[1][2] says <title>Google
Chat - Chat with family and friends</title>

I was not trying to be presumptuous. I really believed you were wrong. GChat
just sounds wrong to me. However, something sounding wrong to me has never
stopped it from being true.

[1]: <https://www.google.com/talk/>

[2]: <http://i.imgur.com/ceHnRcA.png>

~~~
kaoD
That's odd, see [http://www.betabeat.com/2012/02/10/google-says-gchat-is-
not-...](http://www.betabeat.com/2012/02/10/google-says-gchat-is-not-a-word/)

Apparently Google endorses Google Talk and resists the GTalk name. I guess
it's easier to be found when your page title is Google Chat even when the
service is called Google Talk (did you notice Google Chat is not anywhere but
the page title?)

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dade_
There is nothing wrong with XMPP, but it is an instant messaging and presence
protocol. Google started adding point to point video and audio calls which is
a hack that doesn't work well when you want to incorporate video/audio
conference, route calls to the PSTN (E.164) dialing, provide calling features
(transfer, call forwarding, call waiting, find me / follow me). That is why
there is SIP. Google has acquired SIP providers and I understand that their
Hangouts backend supports SIP, so I do think they were going to introduce this
capability to their environment, but I hope that they are going to stick to an
industry standard here as it allows people to choose the endpoint that best
meets their need. Time will tell...

------
mmuro
Don't be surprised if Google Talk goes away. What's it to them if they can't
sell you ads while you chat?

~~~
saraid216
They can't? MSN Messenger was doing that...

~~~
mmuro
Ah, I didn't know that MSN did that.

But the point I was trying to make is that if they say not enough people are
using it that means it's not financially viable to keep operating (see: Google
Reader).

~~~
saraid216
> Ah, I didn't know that MSN did that.

Yeah. And then MSFT shuttered it for Skype a little bit ago.

Ads: not actually a magical miracle money tube.

~~~
mmuro
Ads are the core of Google's business.

~~~
saraid216
Yes, I'm aware.

That doesn't mean "put ads in product" automagically converts to "sustainable
profit/loss".

------
danielnr
I'm all for Google fixing their mess of communications platforms, but by
attempting to consolidate those into a proprietary solution, I fear they've
doomed it to the same fate as Google Wave.

If they were to at least include support for XMPP clients, they would be
golden; however, the opposite appears to be true.

~~~
xradionut
After they captured a good chunk of the RSS eyeballs, then pissed off the
users, I'm wary of anything Google does. I'm going to have to spend a
significant amount of time decoupling myself from their existing services.

~~~
MrTw3Tea
Yea, I think that sentiment is being felt by quite a few. I'm in the process
of doing a little spring cleaning myself.

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roc
While I hope they aim a little lower this time and work out the UI first, it'd
be a true shame if they didn't attempt some resurrection of the agent/plugin
interaction they attempted with Wave.

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jscheel
I'm not looking forward to the day I have to open up gmail to chat with
people. Using Adium to collect all of my chat under one place is absolutely
essential to my daily workflow.

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Pro_bity
I think this may have less to do with the fulfillment of a long term Google+
type social strategy and more of a reaction to the explosive growth of
communication apps like WhatsApp, Wechat, and Line. These apps have grown to
critical mass and can use their positions to grow into full blow threats to
anyone with significant market share in social.

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jcomis
isn't there already a chat client called babble? I remember reading some paper
about it's adoption/usage at IBM years ago.

~~~
christopheraden
Yes, there is. Link:
[http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/wwwr_thinkresearch.nsf/p...](http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/wwwr_thinkresearch.nsf/pages/babble498.html)

Not entirely related to Google's idea, but not completely unrelated either.

~~~
jcomis
Yeah, here's another CSCW '99 <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1242013>

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snippyhollow
Now _that_ wouldn't hurt my girlfriend's startup brand name...
<http://www.babbleplanet.com>

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benguild
This might be a great way to bring more users to Google Plus, and Google's IM
stuff in general.

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evandena
I wonder if they plan on unifying SMS and Talk with this platform.

