Watcher (presence)
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In
computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...
and
telecommunications network A telecommunications network is a group of Node (networking), nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit ...
s, presence information is a status indicator that conveys ability and willingness of a potential communication partner—for example a
user Ancient Egyptian roles * User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty * Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User" Other uses * User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...
—to
communicate Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not only transmit ...
. A user's
client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuable ...
provides presence information (presence state) via a network connection to a presence service, which is stored in what constitutes his personal availability record (called a presentity) and can be made available for distribution to other users (called ''watchers'') to convey their availability for communication. Presence information has wide application in many communication services and is one of the innovations driving the popularity of
instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...
or recent implementations of
voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...
clients.


Presence state

A user client may publish a presence state to indicate its current communication status. This published state informs others that wish to contact the user of his availability and willingness to communicate. The most common use of presence today is to display an indicator icon on
instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...
clients, typically from a choice of graphic symbols with easy-to-convey meanings, and a list of corresponding text descriptions of each of the states. Even when technically not the same, the "on-hook" or "off-hook" state of called telephone is an analogy, as long as the caller receives a distinctive tone indicating unavailability or availability. Common states on the user's availability are "free for chat", "busy", "away", " do not disturb", "out to lunch". Such states exist in many variations across different modern instant messaging clients. Current standards support a rich choice of additional presence attributes that can be used for presence information, such as user mood, location, or free text status. The analogy with free/busy tone on
PSTN The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the aggregate of the world's telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local telephony operators. It provides infrastructure and services for public telephony. The PSTN consists ...
is inexact, as the "on-hook" telephone status reflects the ability of the network to reach the recipient after the requester has initiated the conversation. The requester must commit to the connection method before discovering the recipient's availability state. Conversely, Presence shows the availability state before a conversation is initiated. A similar comparison might be the requester needing to know if the recipient is at work. The most straightforward way of checking if the recipient is available is to walk to the desk, which requires the commitment of the walk regardless of the outcome and usually requires some interaction if the recipient is at the desk. The requester can call first to save the walk, but now must commit to an interaction via phone. Presence gives the state of the recipient to the requester and the requester has the choice to interact with the recipient or use that information for non-interactive purposes (such as taking roll).


MPOP and presence by observation

Presence becomes interesting for communication systems when it spans a number of different communication channels. The idea that multiple communication devices can combine state, to provide an aggregated view of a user's presence has been termed Multiple Points of Presence (MPOP). MPOP becomes even more powerful when it is automatically inferred from passive observation of a user's actions. This idea is already familiar to instant messaging users who have their status set to "Away" (or equivalent) if their computer keyboard is inactive for some time. Extension to other devices could include whether the user's cell phone is on, whether they are logged into their computer, or perhaps checking their electronic calendar to see if they are in a meeting or on vacation. For example, if a user's calendar was marked as out of office and their cell phone was on, they might be considered in a "Roaming" state. MPOP status can then be used to automatically direct incoming messages across all contributing devices. For example, "Out of office" might translate to a system directing all messages and calls to the user's cell phone. The status "Do not disturb" might automatically save all messages for later and send all phone calls to voicemail. XMPP, discussed below, allows for MPOP by assigning each client a "resource" (a specific identifier) and a priority number for each resource. A message directed to the user's ID would go to the resource with highest priority, although messaging a specific resource is possible by using the form user@domain/resource.


Privacy concerns

Presence is highly
sensitive information Information sensitivity is the control of access to information or knowledge that might result in loss of an advantage or level of security if disclosed to others. Loss, misuse, modification, or unauthorized access to sensitive information can ...
and in non-trivial systems a presentity may define limits to which its presence information may be revealed to different watchers. For example, a worker may only want colleagues to see detailed presence information during office hours. Basic versions of this idea are already common in instant messaging clients as a "Blocking" facility, where users can appear as unavailable to selected watchers.


Commercial products

Presence, particularly MPOP, requires collaboration between a number of electronic devices (for example IM client, home phone, cell phone, and electronic calendar) and the presence services each of them are connected with. To date, the most common and wide-scale implementations use closed systems, with a SPOP (Single Point of Presence, where a single device publishes state). Some vendors have upgraded their services to automatically log out connected clients when a new login request reaches the server from a newly connecting different device. For presence to universally work with MPOP support, multiple devices must be able to not only intercommunicate among each other, the status information must also be appropriately handled by all other interoperable, connected presence services and the MPOP scheme for their clients.
2.5G 2G refers to the second-generation of cellular network technology, which were rolled out globally starting in the early 1990s. The main differentiator to previous mobile telephone systems, retrospectively dubbed 1G, is that the radio signals of ...
and, even more so, 3G cell phone networks can support management and access of presence information services for mobile users cell phone handsets. In the workplace, private messaging servers offer the possibility of MPOP within a company or work team.


In the business community

Presence information is a growing tool towards more effective and efficient communication within a business setting. Presence information allows you to instantly see who is available in your corporate network, giving more flexibility to set up short-term meetings and conference calls. The result is precise communication that all but eliminates the inefficiency of phone tag or email messaging. An example of the time-saving aspect of presence information is a driver with a GPS; he/she can be tracked and sent messages on upcoming traffic patterns that, in return, save time and money. According to IDC surveys, employees "often feel that IM gives their workdays the kind of 'flow' that they feel when sitting directly among their colleagues, being able to ask questions of them, and getting the kind of quick responses that allow them to drive on to the next task". This phenomenon has been called the "Presence Effect" in contrast to its predecessor the "
water cooler A water dispenser, sometimes referred to as a water cooler (if used for cooling only), is a machine that dispenses and often also refrigeration, cools or heats up water with a refrigeration unit. It is commonly located near the restroom due to c ...
" effect, whereby this level of flow was only thought to be achieved in person. With presence information, privacy of the users can become an issue. For example, when an employee is on his/her day off they are still connected to the network and have greater ability to be tracked down. Therefore, a concern of presence information is to determine how far the companies want to go with staying connected.


Presence standardization efforts

There was, and still is, significant work done in several
working group A working group is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. Such groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdisciplinary collab ...
s on achieving a standardization for presence-related protocols. In 1999, a group called the Instant Message and Presence Protocol (IMPP) working group (WG), was formed within the Internet Engineering Task Force organization (IETF) in order to develop protocols and data formats for simple presence and instant messaging services. Unfortunately, IMPP WG was not able to come to consensus on a single protocol for presence. Instead it issued a common profile for presence and instant messaging (CPP) which defined semantics for common services of presence to facilitate the creation of gateways between presence services. Thus any two CPP-compatible presence protocol suites are automatically interoperable. In 2001, the
SIMPLE Simple or SIMPLE may refer to: *Simplicity, the state or quality of being simple Arts and entertainment * ''Simple'' (album), by Andy Yorke, 2008, and its title track * "Simple" (Florida Georgia Line song), 2018 * "Simple", a song by John ...
working group was formed within IETF to develop a suite of CPP-compliant standards for presence and instant messaging applications over the Session Initiation Protocol ( SIP). The SIMPLE activity specifies extensions to the SIP protocol which deal with a publish and subscribe mechanism for presence information and sending instant messages. These extensions include rich presence document formats, privacy control, "partial publications" and notifications, past and future presence, watcher information and more. Despite its name, SIMPLE is far from simple. It is described in about 30 documents on more than 1,000 pages. This is in addition to the complexity of the SIP protocol stack on which SIMPLE is based. At the end of 2001, Nokia, Motorola, and Ericsson formed the Wireless Village (WV) initiative to define a set of universal specifications for mobile Instant Messaging and Presence Services (IMPS) and presence services for wireless networks. In October 2002, Wireless Village was consolidated into the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and a month later released the first version of the
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
-based
OMA Instant Messaging and Presence Service The OMA Instant Messaging and Presence Service (IMPS) is an Open Mobile Alliance enabler for Instant Messaging and Presence. The Wireless Village consortium developed the first cut of the specifications. After Wireless Village was merged with ...
(IMPS). IMPS defines a system architecture, syntax, and semantics for representation of presence information and a set of protocols for the four primary features: presence, IM, groups, and shared content. Presence is the key, enabling technology for the IMPS. The XML-based
XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (abbreviation XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an Open standard, open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Ext ...
or Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol was designed and is currently maintained by the
XMPP Standards Foundation XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) is the foundation in charge of the standardization of the protocol extensions of Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, XMPP, the open standard of instant messaging and presence of the Internet Engineering Ta ...
. This IM protocol, which is a robust and widely extended protocol, is also the protocol used in the commercial implementation of
Google Talk Google Talk was an instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users. Google Talk was also the name o ...
and
Facebook Chat Messenger, formerly known as Facebook Messenger, is an American proprietary software, proprietary instant messaging service developed by Meta Platforms. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the Client software, client application ...
. In October 2004, the XMPP working group at
IETF The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet standard, Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster ...
published the documents RFC 3920, RFC 3921, RFC 3922 and RFC 3923, to standardize the core XMPP protocol.


See also

*
Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients The landscape for instant messaging involves cross-platform instant messaging clients that can handle one or multiple protocols. Clients that use the same protocol can typically federate and talk to one another. The following table compares gener ...
*
Comparison of instant messaging protocols The following is a comparison of instant messaging protocols. It contains basic general information about the protocols. Table of instant messaging protocols See also * Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients * Comparison of ...
*
Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients The following tables compare general and technical information between a number of notable IRC client programs which have been discussed in independent, reliable prior published sources. General Basic general information about the notablecl ...
*
Comparison of LAN messengers The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of notable LAN messengers. General information Basic general information about the LAN messengers: creator/company, license/price, among others. Operating system suppo ...
*
Comparison of VoIP software This is a comparison of voice over IP (VoIP) software that examines applications and systems used for conducting voice and multimedia communications across Internet Protocol (IP) networks. VoIP technology has transformed telecommunications by offe ...
*
List of SIP software This list of SIP software documents notable software applications which use Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as a voice over IP (VoIP) protocol. Servers Free and open-source license A SIP server, also known as a SIP proxy, manage ...
*
List of video telecommunication services and product brands A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...


References

* Day, M., J. Rosenberg, and H. Sugano. "A Model for Presence and Instant Messaging." RFC 2778 February 2000. * 3GPP TR 23.841 (Technical Report
Presence service; Architecture and Functional Description
* 3GPP TS 23.141 (Technical Specification

* 3GPP TS 24.141 (Technical Specification

* ttp://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2004/09/23/presence_awareness_indicators_where.htm “Presence Awareness Indicators - Where Are You Now?”Robin Good. September 23, 2004. Haag, Stephen. Cummings, Maeve. McCubbrey J, Donald. Pinsonneault, Alain. Donovan, Richard. Management Information Systems for the Information Age. Third Canadian Edition. Canada. McGraw-Hill, 2006.


External links


XMPP Standards Foundation


{{DEFAULTSORT:Presence Information Instant messaging