[rakoo]

> XMPP, from my brief experience with it, is well suited to "instant"-type communications, but the vast majority of "legitimate" emails are significantly more substantive than "instant" messages, so I believe the NeoMsg protocol is superior for this particular task.

XMPP is just a transport protocol. You can use it for pretty much everything you want. Yes, it's highly targeted towards messaging, and yes, it sucks if you want to send some binary (or even some xml). But I believe it's much easier to adapt it to your needs than start from scratch. You're tackling a very difficult problem here because you need network effect for success.

Oh and the fact that communication is or isn't substantive isn't due to XMPP: it's due to pretty much all existing clients targeting instant communication. One client I find interesting in this context is Salut à Toi [0]. Check all the features, you can do far more than just chatting:

- Use your MUA to send messages accross the XMPP network

- Use XMPP to remote control your VLC

- Play games together

You really need to see XMPP more as a (mostly) generic transport than as an IM protocol.

[0] http://sat.goffi.org/features.html