<td>Jabber ID (JID), e.g. usr@a.b.c/home with "home" being a "resource", which distinguishes the same user when logged in from multiple locations (simultaneously)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Interoperability:</strong></td>
<td>Google Talk, LiveJournal, Gizmo</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>Note that XMPP is special, due to being an open protocol. There is no central XMPP server, the structure is like e-mail. Everybody (with a static IP) can host an XMPP server, optionally linking it up to the global XMPP network (otherwise, only local users on the same server are accessible).</p>
<p>There are already several larger XMPP installations, like Google Talk, LiveJournal and Gizmo.</p>
<p>This openness also means that unless you want to install your own server (not recommended), you also have to choose a hoster for your account (just like for email). Besides the three mentioned in the previous paragraph, the community portal jabber.org also has a <aclass="ext_link"href="http://www.jabber.org/web/Services">list</a>.</p>
<p>More technical information can be found at <aclass="ext_link"href="http://www.xmpp.org/">the XMPP Standards Foundation</a>.</p>