Just a quick pointer to something I’ve found interesting… Could Instant Messaging XMPP Power the Future of Online Communication? – ReadWriteWeb (RRW). The article discusses the use of Jabber (AKA XMPP and the framework behind Google’s Gmail Chat) as a way to help ease the load of stateless HTTP. Right now, every time a web server updates, browsers have to specifically re-request the page to find updates. RRW says that this may not be required if the browser “logs in” to the page using XMPP and then just waits for updates. According to RRW:
Tivo, they say, no longer requires your box to check in with the Tivo servers periodically – the server sends a signal via XMPP to available boxes when new information is published. Tivo is essentially using machine-to-machine Instant Messaging for real time communication within its service.
So it’s already in use in some applications! There are some other applications that the article mentions – no more hourly checks of RSS feeds – readers can go get the new post only when pinged by the server. That would cut down on a LOT of traffic on the net all by itself! There were also some reservations expressed in the article, such as whether a completely open standard could make it worth a company’s while to build upon it if everyone else can do the same thing with no barriers. I’m hoping to see it used more – I can really see where it would be a handy way to get up-to-the-second updates from a lot of different sites, without constant polling or refreshing involved!
