BuddyPress.org

I know there’s already a fair share of talk about fancy Facebook always-at-the-bottom chat and all that, and Facebook has inspired my idea as well, but it’s really just the Jabber part that intrigues me. I want to know more about Jabber integration in web chat.

How hard is it really?

What type of server will it take to support it? (I get Jabber on my lowest-tier DreamHost for instance)

Will a jabber-enabled chat likely require more bandwidth than an AJAX one (well, AJAX might still be used for Jabber’s interface but… you know what I’m trying to say)

My dream set up goes something like this:

BuddyPress is hooked up to your own Jabber server (say, ejabberd). Whoever is logged in is also logged in to the main channel. Additionally when you’re browsing through a group you’ll be logged into the respective sub-channel as well (clearly this could be simplified in later iterations). With your own Jabber client, you could log in to any of the site’s channels with your site ID (like Facebook does it) or with your own Jabber ID (like Gmail), which is naturally tied to your site account if you’ve added it there already as an alternative Jabber account.

I’d definitely pay up to $100 for an extension of this caliber done right. And I’d imagine there could be some great business in customized set up for the Jabber servers and hosting.