Meet COI (Chat over IMAP) - a powerful contender for WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and other proprietary messengers. Based on email this open standards & open source iniative overcomes the network effect by providing a chat experience to over 3.8 billion active email users worldwide. By being backwards compatible with pure email, you do not need to convince all your friends, family and peers to join the new system - you can still engage with them and they can reach you. We cooperate with Delta Chat open source project to bundle efforts and ensure interoperability. Join this talk to learn about all things COI from Michael (Dovecot) and Robert (OX).
The COI standard is the best way to overcome the current messaging silos and allow everyone to compete on the same terms. Read on to learn why COI matters.
Most popular messaging services are currently proprietary, closed and operated by single providers. This leads to several problems:
Maybe you are thinking “I thought this is why we have Signal, Telegram and the other privacy-centric apps?” – they might very well be better than some of the more popular networks, but in the end, they control the network and other providers are locked out. Basically, you are exchanging one silo with another.
“What about XMPP and Matrix.org?” – glad you asked! We love XMPP and Matrix.org because they provide a great solution – this only solves the problem in theory though. With XMPP and Matrix.org-based services you would still need to convince everyone to join your new network. Easy in theory, very complex in practice!
“What about RCS? I thought Google fixes this?” – well, are you sure about Google? Google used XMPP in the past but then locked it down. Google tried to push several chat solutions out with only little success. So, Google’s track record is far from perfect. Most notably, however, RCS requires a device to have a phone number (MSISDN). As communication is quickly migrating towards pure IP based solutions, MSISDNs become relics of the past. Most new innovative devices come without MSISDNs, e.g. voice enabled devices such as Alexa or Google Home, VR and AR devices such as HoloLens or Oculus Rift, portable game consoles, etc. With this dependency on MSISDNs, RCS’ future is uncertain.
COI enhances an already existing communication system: email. This already solves lots of problems:
In this talk Michael and Robert will explain why COI really offers potential, the technical details about the new standards and what the next steps on this exciting journey are.
Speakers: Robert Virkus