“EMBEDDEDTALK”: A NEW SOLUTION OF INTERCONNECTING INSTANT MESSAGING NETWORKS

“EmbeddedTalk”: A New Solution of Interconnecting Instant Messaging Networks



Abstract

I consider the common problem of interconnecting multiple Instant Messaging services. Today, various IM communities divide the users, such as AOL, Yahoo and MSN. However, based on the reason of earlier IM technology and commercial operations, such applications communicate through proprietary protocols and proprietary communicating mechanism. Each IM application itself becomes an “information island”, and different IM applications cannot exchange information. Users, who want to communicate with AOL and MSN buddies simultaneously, compel to install AOL client and MSN client, and sign in each service separately. Some solutions can be applied, divided into two methods: client-side solution and server-side solution. Although the methods can solve the problem to some extent, I propose a new solution based on Windows Hook API and DLL injection that allows users to keep their existing IM clients. I elaborate the solution and argue the technologies' difficulties. I describe the implementation details of the solution.

Table of Contents

Introduction4

Relate Work5

Client Integration5

Standard Gateway5

“CrossTalk”7

Solution8

“EmbeddedTalk” Solution8

Primary Technologies8

Components10

Embedded Client Manager11

Intercommunication Mechanism11

Implementation Details14

Embedded Client Manager15

Embedded Client15

“EmbeddedTalk” Evaluation19

“EmbeddedTalk” is Positive19

Intercommunicates through Single IM Account19

“EmbeddedTalk” overcomes Feature Subtraction20

“EmbeddedTalk” Executes Fast20

Communication Limitation21

Rough Embedded21

Account Security and Users' Confidence Factor21

Rude Modification of Official Clients21

Tight Coupling with Official Clients21

Objectives Of Embedded Systems22

Commercial or industrial23

Adjusting the design23

Useful Hardware and Software23

Conclusion24

“EmbeddedTalk”: A New Solution of Interconnecting Instant Messaging Networks

Introduction

"[LinkedIn] users have been loyal because there is a switching cost," says Jonathan Yarmis, a VP and analyst with AMR Research. "For someone to go and duplicate what they're doing, and even if they came up with a superior platform tomorrow, they wouldn't necessarily switch because they've built their business network. In many ways, the connections can be worth more than the platform [5]."

Instant Messaging and Presence appears as a killer application in the fields of wireless and wire-line telecommunications [1]. Worldwide IM accounts are on the rapid rise. In 2008, the amount of worldwide IM accounts is about 1,892 million, and until now, the number reaches 3,381 million, nearly two times than 2008 [2]. An investigate shows that in United Kingdom, teenagers spend 2 hours on IM every day on average. All the participants were IM users employing at least one of the four most popular IM systems: AOL's Instant Messenger (AIM), ICQ, MSN Messenger (MSN) and Yahoo! Messenger [3]. IM has also becomes a tool that successfully supports informal communications in companies [4]. However, there is a vendor lock-in problem in IM field. Large IM service providers possess a large number of user groups, different user groups cannot communicate with each other. Each IM service becomes an “information island”. In 2007, a survey made by researchers clearly shows that, in China, the most not satisfied factor to IM users is IM software cannot intercommunicate, the ratio reached 47.9%. Moreover, up to 71.43% of users wish that different IM software can implement interconnection [15].

One common solution to vendor lock-in problem is client integration; it integrates different IM service into a single ...