I just heard about RetroAIM. Which is a way to use AIM (AOL Instant Messanger) in the modern day, running your own servers.
Wasn’t AIM just using XMPP? (It’s been a while since I looked at these things).
Still neat. AIM was impressive for the time, I even ran it on Android circa 2009. Frustrating that things like AIM/XMPP got supplanted by SMS, then things like WhatsApp, etc got in when we already had better with XMPP!
Plot twist - WhatsApp is XMPP.
SMS is older than AIM by four years. Before 3G, and before phones like the iPhone and Android devices, using internet on a mobile was clunky and awful anyway. SMS and XMPP did not really directly compete.
I think many chat clients at that time were XMPP based. We used Lotus Sametime at work, and now I am pretty certain it was XMPP (remembering some UX details and specifics), and it worked incredibly well.
IIRC Google Hangouts was XMPP, too.
That’s great, I used ICQ a lot back in the day.