1. Choose an identity from the IM network of your choice. This will be the name to send messages to and from.
2. Choose a service name. This will be the prefix for all the messages sent and received. (i.e.: for the identity paip2 messages like “weather London, UK” and “football Manchester” are sent to 2 different services: weather and football).
3. Enter the URL where to send all your incoming messages. The parameters will be sent via GET. (i.e.: http://weathersite.com/incoming.php?from=foo&to=weather&type=msg&msg=London,UK). When you receive a message to this service you can reply on the fly by outputing the message (which in this example would be likely). If you don’t wan’t to reply at that moment (because it usually takes a lot to process, for example) just ouput “noreply“.

And that’s all.

To send messages you send the parameters to our webservice url via GET or POST.

Example: http://paipto.com/webservice/put?from=weather&to=foo&type=msg&msg=Sunny+weather&key=1235ae13242314..

The type parameter will be used later on to send conference messages, set status messages, accept and/or delete buddies and send files.

The key parameter is your unique API key which you will be assigned on signup.

Every account can have many different profiles (identities) through which they can communicate. By default each account has only one profile with the same name as the account. This works for us because we can have different names (profiles, identities) on one client connected to yahoo messenger. A different account requires another instance of our client to be started and connected to ymsg thus eating more ram and cpu time.

Mind you, protocols like Skype or MSN don’t support profiles, so these will be limited to Y! messenger as far as I know. We will probably support a lot less identities on these other protocols because they are more expensive hardware wise.

Further more each profile or name can have an infinite ammount of services attached to it. Services act like a namespace in xml. Say something like “weather New York” to one profile and it will send the parameter “New York” to the weather service and return to you the weather from New York, but say “twit Hello Everybody” to the same profile and it will send the parameters “Hello Everybody” to the twitter service which probably belongs to another developer.

You can be implementing these services using paip.

So, you’re probably wondering now how does everything connect?

Rather simple.

But about that in the next blog post…

Meanwhile here is our list of current supported features:

• yahoo messenger protocol implemented
• multiple identities (profiles) per y! account
• send & receive messages with different profiles and services

And we are currently working on implenting:

• conferences (if it is possible)
• status change (only for those with private y! accounts)
• receive cleaned rich text messages (color, font, style)
• file transfer

Howdy!

If you are reading these lines you are probably more than interested about our new product. Personally I don’t know any service like this out there, but first, let me explain you what is paip about.

In many cases in your site/webapp or software planning and development process you collate to the problem of interaction with your users. Q: Which is one of the most used interaction mediums worldwide ? A: Instant messaging.

Have you ever sent SMS messages for exemple to TV contests? In those messages you type first a service name, like for example “footbal” followed by, let’s say, your correct answer.

Paip is going to help you “translate” messages from your clients with IM in a http format, making a gateway between your web app or even software and his IM id. For example, let’s pretend one of you, using our easy to use API, will make a weather application, and a person wants to know how is the weather in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He sends a message to our IM Id containing a service name(let’s call it “weather”) and the coordinates: “weather Cluj-Napoca”. Your app will receive this request in a easy to use http format, and your app will be able to send the requested informations about the weather in Cluj-Napoca.

Of course we will need your help in this private beta testing to make our application perfect for your developing needs, and most of all to create features that will protect IM user from spamming.

Throught the days to come we will present more possible scenarios and how these can be implemented.