A movement focused on capturing the creativity and openness of the early Internet.
We aren't here to watch Big Web burn (we have plenty of communities for that) but to find positive ways we can make the Small Web better.
Elsewhere in the Fediverse:
Wasn't AIM just using XMPP? (It's been a while since I looked at these things).
Still neat. AIM was impressive for the time, I even ran it on Android circa 2009. Frustrating that things like AIM/XMPP got supplanted by SMS, then things like WhatsApp, etc got in when we already had better with XMPP!
Plot twist - WhatsApp is XMPP.
SMS is older than AIM by four years. Before 3G, and before phones like the iPhone and Android devices, using internet on a mobile was clunky and awful anyway. SMS and XMPP did not really directly compete.
I think many chat clients at that time were XMPP based. We used Lotus Sametime at work, and now I am pretty certain it was XMPP (remembering some UX details and specifics), and it worked incredibly well.
IIRC Google Hangouts was XMPP, too.
That's great, I used ICQ a lot back in the day.