Need(ed) beta testers - XMPP Notifications on TUJ

[Erorus]

Hey folks,

XMPP is an instant messaging protocol used by many services, such as Google Talk. The neat thing about XMPP is that you don't have to be on the same service to IM someone. For example, you can IM someone's Google Talk account from your LiveJournal IM account, or from your Jabber account, or from any other XMPP-supporting service.

I've been working on XMPP notifications for The Undermine Journal over the past week. I think I'm ready for a limited beta test. I'm looking for about a dozen volunteers who have used notifications on TUJ via Email/RSS and would be interested in receiving those notifications via Instant Message. You'll need to have an XMPP account somewhere (Google Talk, most likely). I'll credit you 14 days of notification time for your help. You don't need to have a current notification subscription if you want to participate.

If you're interested in trying it out, login to TUJ and send me a note via the contact page saying you want to try out XMPP. I'll then set the flag on the server that'll show the new section on your user controls page. If you have any questions or comments about it, let's hear it here.

I'd like to keep this feature quiet while we test, because I'm not 100% sure this'll make it to production. I just need a bunch of people to use it for a few days and stress test it, and let me know if it's working as expected.

Thanks.

edit I do not need any more volunteer beta testers for this feature, thanks.

[taro]

Hello. This doesnt work well for me, I pmed you via google talk, but still receive notifications only through RSS.

Hello, xxxxxxx! We will send messages to xxxxxxxx@gmail.com when that account is online.

[Erorus]

That's why I need testers. I reviewed the logs and I think I know where it tripped up.. you should've just now received a (delayed) copy of one of your notifications. The fix is applied and we'll see if it helps.

[taro]

Yeah, right. Now it works with the delay, but with google talk I dont see the time when notification popped up, are there any ways to see the time?

[Erorus]

Well there normally won't be any delay (otherwise that misses the point). I could add a timestamp if it becomes useful, though, like if you were AFK when it popped up or something. Your chat client should also have some sort of time setting.

However, I ran into another issue: something kicked the service offline after it sent some large messages. Not sure if that's a limitation with my XMPP host, or with the protocol, or just a fluke. Either way, the thing I had set up to keep the connection open didn't trigger when it went offline, so I have to look into that.

[taro]

There was a notification via RSS, when I loaded 10 snatch items on AH. I didnt receive same message via google talk.
Btw didnt find time settings in google talk, not very familiar with it. I mostly use skype and icq

[Deathwarp]

At first, when i sent the two words from the control panel, iit responded "What?", but then the words changed and worked
Apart from that, i t seems to be working fine.

[Erorus]

At first, when i sent the two words from the control panel, iit responded "What?", but then the words changed and worked
Apart from that, i t seems to be working fine.

That's on purpose. Those words work only for an hour after you last visited the site. After that, it generates new words. It's to discourage brute-forcing attacks. I figure most people would find the words, then go to their instant messenger and type/copy them in right away, not wait over an hour before trying them out.

[Erorus]

There was some confusion about what actually supports XMPP.

There's two main parts of XMPP in this conversation: there's the XMPP protocol (which the TUJ bot uses to talk to its XMPP service) and there's XMPP Federation, which is the cool bit that lets my service talk to other services using XMPP (like Google Talk, or Jabber).

Both Facebook and Windows Live Messenger have said, "hey, we support XMPP now!" But they really mean that they will accept communications from clients using the XMPP protocol. They don't participate in XMPP federation, or server-to-server communication, which is the magic that lets messages cross services. So if you use Live Messenger, you can only talk to people on Live Messenger (or Facebook, because they did something special with FB). And if you use Facebook, you can't talk to other services, like Google Talk.

That's kinda a shame.

So I guess the only major service that can use this service is Google Talk, and any other tiny services that support XMPP federation b/c they have nothing to lose? No Facebook Chat, no Live Messenger, no AOL Instant Messenger, no Skype, no Yahoo Messenger..

Correct me if I'm wrong here. It looks like there may be special agreements between Google and Yahoo, and between Facebook and Live, but they're not pure XMPP federation.

[Acry]

There was some confusion about what actually supports XMPP.

There's two main parts of XMPP in this conversation: there's the XMPP protocol (which the TUJ bot uses to talk to its XMPP service) and there's XMPP Federation, which is the cool bit that lets my service talk to other services using XMPP (like Google Talk, or Jabber).

Both Facebook and Windows Live Messenger have said, "hey, we support XMPP now!" But they really mean that they will accept communications from clients using the XMPP protocol. They don't participate in XMPP federation, or server-to-server communication, which is the magic that lets messages cross services. So if you use Live Messenger, you can only talk to people on Live Messenger (or Facebook, because they did something special with FB). And if you use Facebook, you can't talk to other services, like Google Talk.

That's kinda a shame.

So I guess the only major service that can use this service is Google Talk, and any other tiny services that support XMPP federation b/c they have nothing to lose? No Facebook Chat, no Live Messenger, no AOL Instant Messenger, no Skype, no Yahoo Messenger..

Correct me if I'm wrong here. It looks like there may be special agreements between Google and Yahoo, and between Facebook and Live, but they're not pure XMPP federation.

Yeah, I was disappointed after I had talked to you via notes. Windows Live would of been more convenient for me than emails for notifications.