As I have mentioned before, I believe Jabber/XMPP will be one of the most influential technologies on human communication since the introduction of standard email¹. I've been thinking lately about ways to encourage my friends to make the switch to Jabber, and I've come up with my solution.

As of my birthday this year (May 19^th), I'll no longer be using AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, or MSN. The only way you will be able to contact me via IM will be via my jabber id, darco@deepdarc.com². So if you want to chat with me after this time, you'll need to at least give Jabber a try.

I'm not asking anyone else to switch entirely to Jabber (although that would be great!), I just want most everyone I know to at least use a jabber account as often as they use their AIM, MSN, or YIM accounts. This is made easy by chat clients such as GAIM and Trillian Pro, which are mentioned below.

Still a bit in the dark about what the hell I'm talking about? Go here. Jabber Australia's website offers the best description about what jabber is and why it is compelling that I've seen yet. Worth a look.

Getting an account

Google Talk

If you have a gMail account, then you have a jabber id via Google Talk! Your jabber id is the same as your email address. You can use either the native google talk client or any other jabber client.

Gizmo Project

Also, if you use the Gizmo Project, you too have a jabber account. Your jabber ID is login-name@chat.gizmoproject.com.

jabber.org

The Jabber Software Foundation is probably the best known Jabber server out there. They just recently switched over to ejabberd for their software, so they should be quite solid now.

deepdarc.com

I run my own jabber server. If you would like an account on it, just ask. I'm no longer offering accounts on deepdarc.com. Please choose one of the servers mentioned above.

Software

Trillian Pro

I know that some of you are rather fond of Trillian, a powerful (and free) chat client for windows that supports AIM, ICQ, YIM, and MSN. Trillian Basic does not support jabber, but Trillian Pro does. As a way to make it easier for you Trillian fans, I am willing to split the cost of Trillian pro with anyone I know personally. If you are interested, drop me a line.

Pandion

Pandion is probably the best jabber client for Windows right now. I highly recommend it. I've also been working on my own additions to Pandion which will eventually be merged into the main development branch, including a whiteboard. If you are feeling adventurous, you can grab my personally modified version of Pandion from my subversion repository here.

PSI

PSI is a cross platform jabber client that is very solid. If neither of the above two will work for you, then give PSI a shot.

Apple iChat

Apple iChat AV supports Jabber as well! I personally use iChat for my jabbering on all my Macs. As an added bonus, you can audio and video chat with other iChat AV users. (Hopefully support for Jingle signaling will be implemented soon, so that iChat AV users can talk to google talk users)

Links

• Jabber Australia—Wonderful site for people who are new to jabber.