3 gens of IM, next steps for XMPP

Since the publication online of the slides of my talk at FOSDEM 2016, right after the XMPP Summit 19, I have developed the three generations of IM in text:

• Welcome to the third generation of Instant Messaging! Part 1/2: on 1st and 2nd gen
• Welcome to the third generation of Instant Messaging! Part 2/2: on 3rd gen and summary table

Before you go on this current article, please really do read those « 3 gens of IM » articles pointed before.

Ready?

After such a market observations for months and years, with analysts, with customers and prospects, with developers worldwide, users of all sorts, startupers, agile and lean startup practitioners, I think we can tell what XMPP specs, clients, libraries, and servers makers need to work on…

What we need to develop as specs in priority:

• full text search of archive;
• in-chat media, with previews (HTTP file upload is only a good beginning);
• MUC without disruption: recover your archive while you were offline (MIX is going slowly and is too heavy+complex);
• group voice and video;
• stickers, maybe;
• easily recover and change passwords like any modern app through an SMS or email.

Service administrators need to deploy massively MAM and Carbons, for multi-device experience.

The top priority for all client developers:

• really, really go full flat design;
• desktop clients need to really, really go single-window;
• implement and use MAM and Carbons, and enable those by default;
• presence and roster should be pushed back a little from the user interface, in favor of discussions/conversations.

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