Tumble Dryer

Not a lifestream but assorted odd socks on spin...
January 26

trying to fall in love with identi.ca/XMPP

Lots of identi.ca folk use XMPP clients to post and consume identi.ca.

I already use Google Talk (personal) and Pidgin (work) IM clients and have tried on more than one occasion to embrace gTalk to be my sole interface to identi.ca

Advantages:

  1. No need to refresh. IM is just a constrant real-time stream.
  2. Google Talk is available for the iTouch which is the mobile device I use to access identi.ca.
  3. The identi.ca tracking service is also managed via XMPP.
  4. Direct messages are supported in the XMPP interface.
  5. Favourit’ing a notice is also possible in XMPP - fave <user>
  6. Speed - XMPP is undoubtedly the quickest way to consume identi.ca.
  7. Any Jabber/IM client may be used.

Disadvantages:

  1. No character count to ensure you are within the 140 character limit. IM just reports ‘You sent 183 characters and limit is 140’ although I guess you soon become aware of the position of the 140 threshold.
  2. No automatic URL shortening - assists with #1
  3. Separate windows needed for identispy (tracking) and identi.ca. Some identi.ca clients (e..g LaTwit) intregrate these into a single stream.
  4. Not possible to examine a user’s profile when you see an reply to a user.
  5. Not possible to quickly switch into the ‘Public’ stream just to listen and potentially discover new interesting topics and users.
  6. Not possible to use the ‘Replies’ tab.

Update: A character count plugin exists for Pidgin.