Re: AOL IM Traffic Statistics

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From: Stephen D. Williams (sdw@lig.net)
Date: Mon Jun 19 2000 - 19:45:42 PDT


Adam Rifkin -4K wrote:

> Steve Williams wrote in http://www.xent.com/april00/1301.html :
> > According to public AOL statements:
> > 4 Million simultaneous users at peak
> > 1 Billion IMs/day
> > 2 MB/second = 173 GB/day = 20Mb+ avg. traffic, full duplex loading
> > Extrapolating:
> > Nearly 12000 IMs/sec, average. My heuristic for public Internet services is
> > that peak is 4 times average.
> > That's an average of 250 IMs/person per day!
>
> 250 IMs/person/day does sound implausible. I know how many messages I'm
> sending on my several AIM accounts and it's not nearly this many combined.
> Still, it gives us a benchmark of what the owner of The World's Most
> Popular IM System believes.

I can't believe I was so confused on this number... The missing statistic is
logins-per-second and total logins per day. That makes this number much more
reasonable. We had a guideline at AOL for logins per day, but I'll wait for them
to release it publicly.

> Dan Kohn wrote:
> > http://aim.aol.com/openim/
>
> Wow. Aoki and Wick did a ton of work in writing this spec:
>
> http://aim.aol.com/openim/draft-aol-imx-00.txt

However it's missing most details and doesn't solve a number of requirements.

> They have interesting company in the IMPP bakeoff...
>
> http://www.imppwg.org/proposals/index.html
>
> ...which range from the "rocket science" of Marshall Rose, Dave Crocker,
> and Graham Kline
>
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-mrose-imxp-core-00.txt

This is closest to my vision.

> ...to the populism of Jeremie Miller's Jabber
>
> http://core.jabber.org/rfc/jabber.txt

Not bad.

> ...to a slew of documents promoting SIP as the answer. (What was the
> question again?)

Wow, complicated.

> With eight proposals on the table, is the question now how to get these
> to interoperate? (Actually, there are 9 proposals on the table if you

No. The final proposal will be a conglomeration of these most likely.

> include Microsoft's RVP.)

They haven't submitted it and the draft expired.

> Or is the question still, is IMPP worth doing at all?
>
> With AOL and Microsoft officially supporting public specs, I do wonder
> what the official corporate positions of IBM/Lotus, Yahoo, and
> CMGi/TribalVoice are. Is this the Senate (one company, one vote) or the
> house of representatives (the more users you have, the more you get to
> dictate -- meaning everyone needs to listen to AOL)?

Neither as far as the IETF is concerned.

> I did notice that AltaVista did some more chirping today.
>
> > AltaVista Launches Instant Messaging Service
> > Monday, June 19, 2000 06:20 PM
> >
> > PALO ALTO, Calif. (Dow Jones)--CMGI Inc.'s
> > AltaVista Co. launched a text and voice instant messaging service
> > designed to be compatible with all other Internet instant messenger
> > services.
> >
> > In a press release Monday, the company said the service uses CMGI's
> > Tribal Voice unit's PowWow technology, the same technology that powers
> > Freeserve's Communicator and AT&T Worldnet IM Here service.
> >
> > A spokesman for Alta Vista wasn't immediately available to say whether
> > its instant messaging service will work with America Online Inc.'s
> > Instant Messenger and/or ICQ, both closed systems.
> >
> > Earlier Monday, America Online Inc. said it plans to
> > start selling $250 television set-top boxes immediately that will let
> > users chat and send instant messages while watching TV.
> >
> > The Journal reported June 14 that Federal Trade Commission
> > investigators began inquiries about AOL's Instant Messenger in
> > connection with the commissions anti-trust review of AOL's $113 buyout
> > of Time Warner Inc.
> >
> > The Journal said that AOL's Instant Messenger and ICQ are closed
> > systems that allow only registered users to communicate with each other;
> > even the two systems are mutually exclusive.
> >
> > The Journal also said predictions about the growing importance of
> > instant messaging have raised questions about the dominance of AOL,
> > which has staved off encroachment from unlikely underdog Microsoft Corp.
> >
> > Though the Time Warner acquisition wouldn't add to AOL's instant
> > messaging market share, The Journal said opening up the market to
> > competition might become a condition of the merger.
> >
> > When reached for comment, a spokesman for CMGI's Tribal Voice said
> > AltaVista Co.'s instant messaging service, though designed to be
> > compatible with other Internet instant messenger services, will work
> > with America Online's services only if AOL chooses to open its system.
> >
> > Notably, AltaVista's users will be able to exchange messages freely
> > with users of Microsoft's open MSN Messenger Service, which is dueling
> > with AOL for the coveted instant messaging market.
>
> ----
> Adam@4K-Associates.Com
>
> I'm a criminal
> Cuz everytime I write a rhyme
> These people think it's a crime to tell 'em what's on my mind
> -- Eminem, "Criminal"

sdw

--
Insta.com - Revolutionary E-Business Communication
sdw@insta.com Stephen D. Williams  Senior Consultant/Architect   http://sdw.st
43392 Wayside Cir,Ashburn,VA 20147-4622 703-724-0118W 703-995-0407Fax  Jan2000


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