[jadmin] Advertising xmpp

[Samuel Penn]

On Saturday 05 January 2008 10:54:40 Sander Devrieze wrote:
> 2008/1/5, Tomasz Sterna <tomek at xiaoka.com>:
> > On So, 2008-01-05 at 09:47 +1100, Matt Bowman wrote:
> > > What about integrating the public server lists
> > > into the open sourced programs. So that a unknowing user doesn't have
> > > to search to find a server to register with. All they do is pick one
> > > from an updated drop down list in the client and volia. That I think
> > > will make it easier for the end user and therefore more people will
> > > use
> > > it.
> >
> > A dropdown with hundreds of items to choose from isn't much helpful.
> > What happens if user chooses a dead server off the list?
>
> The list should be maintained and accurate. It's as easy as that :-)

A small list would be better than a big list (as long as there's an
option to type in any server of course). XMPPs biggest strength, is
also a marketing weakness - since anyone can run a server, you have
no name recognition. All the big IM systems people are used to are
closed, so there's probably an expectation that people on the same
IM system have an address that says what system they're on.

An IM address of xxxbob at jabber.org makes it easier for people to
figure out that they're using Jabber, and they can use it to talk
to xxxalice at jabber.org. If Bob has bob at someserver1.org and Alice
signs up to alice at otherserver.com then there's no clues there to
make them think they can talk to each other. If both are using
different multi-protocol clients, then possibly they also didn't
install those clients because they supported XMPP.

Possibly, when installing a client a prompt like "Did you know that
you can chat through Google Mail? Do you want to connect to your
GMail account?" might help the user to make better use of contacts
they already have, and identify people they can chat with.

Am I making sense, or am I underestimating users ability to join
the dots?

-- 
Be seeing you,                         http://www.glendale.org.uk
Sam.                        Mail/IM (Jabber): sam at glendale.org.uk