Spidering Jabber
2006-01-16
One of the things that makes the web work so well is search: type in what you're looking for and a search engine returns a whole bunch of page results. To me, the holy grail for Jabber is this: type in who you're looking for and a search engine returns a whole bunch of people results. ICQ has always had a basic search feature for people on the ICQ service, but I think we can do much better on the Jabber network. Here's why:
- We have a real URI scheme, which I'm working to finalize soon at the IETF. This means anyone can link to resources on the Jabber/XMPP network.
- We have vCards and, soon, a much more robust profile data system. This means you'll be able to search on name, place, employer, expertise, interests, hobbies, zodiac sign, and so on.
- You can search not just for people, but also for chatrooms, content syndication feeds, and so on.
To make this dream a reality, we need two things:
- Folks need to starting linking to people and services on the Jabber/XMPP network (e.g., my Jabber ID is stpeter@jabber.org, I'm an admin for the jabber.org server, and I sometimes hang out in the jdev chatroom).
- Google (or someone very much like Google) needs to start spidering the Jabber/XMPP network by sending service discovery, vCard, and (soon) profile requests to xmpp: URIs.
Peter Saint-Andre > Journal