At this point, you probably have one or more of the following questions:

• “What is Jabber? And, other than wanting to talk to you, why should I use it?”
• “How do I get Jabber?”
• “What is your new address?”

If you’ve never heard of Jabber, Jabber (known formally as XMPP), is an instant messaging protocol, just like AIM, Yahoo Messenger or MSN. The biggest difference is that Jabber is open and decentralized. For example, if you want to talk to someone who uses AIM, you need to go through AOL’s servers. If you want to talk to someone using MSN, you need to go through Microsoft’s servers. Jabber is actually more like email: you can talk to people on different servers, as long as their server speaks the Jabber protocol. These include servers run by companies such as Google (via Gmail), LiveJournal and Earthlink. In fact, because it’s open, anyone can run their own server, which is what I’m doing now via my new web host.

In addition to openness and decentralization, Jabber has many other noteworthy qualities, including a much better security model than email (no spam!) and the flexibility to add custom functionality on top of the core protocol.

If you think this sounds good, and want to get in on the action, grab a client that supports Jabber. There are tons, but the ones recommended by the Jabber Software Foundation are at the top of this list. Oh, and you’ll also need a Jabber ID. If you have a Gmail account, you already have a Jabber ID: it’s the same as your email address. If you don’t have a Gmail account, there are tons of other servers offering free accounts. Here is a handy guide for getting an account on the jabber.org server.

So if you’ve ever enjoyed my witty one-liners and masterful use of emoticons, and would like to continue to enjoy them from 2007 on, hook yourself up with a Jabber ID and Jabber client and hit me up!

Jabber.

Yes, Jabber. I know, no big surprise there. But, it seems like something I could wrap my head around completely (unlike, say, Linux). The client-side part of Jabber is pretty stupid simple. The server-side part… well, we’ll see. But, I’m making a commitment this summer to getting inside Jabber, and really getting to know how all the pieces fit together.

Going Mobile

Final thought: once IP phones take off, presence will indeed become the new dial tone (why call someone if they’re not available?). So the buddy list will become the center of the universe, even more than it is today.

And for those of you who are lost, this is the open protocol that Google is using for Google Talk, and which I plan to use for my phone. It’s a good thing, a very good thing.

In other news, I’ve made some decisions into how the phone’s interface will be set up (thanks in large part to Jeff and Robb). The faceless phone idea, while really cool, just won’t let me explore everything I want to be able to do with this phone.

In reality, it’s not a phone. It’s an IM device.

And with that comes a lot of really cool explorations. Jabber just provides so many possibilities for providing services: live weather, restaurant reviews, address/direction search, blogger, news feeds, file transfers, whiteboarding, email notifications. It would be a shame not to take advantage of everything that Jabber is through this device. Thus, I’m definitely going touchscreen based, with no hardware buttons, save for power on/off and screen lock. That gives me the most flexibility to explore interface variations, makes i18n much easier and more cost effective, and allows for doing some more PDA and tablet-like functionality. It will still be most definitely a “phone-ish” form factor though. It needs to maintain a distinct identity from PDAs, and shouldn’t feel clunky holding up to your ear to talk into.