Author: Peter Saint-Andre, Kevin Smith & Remko Tronçon
Publisher: O'Reilly, 2009
Pages: 308
ISBN: 978-0596521264
Aimed at: Those who wish to use the XMPP protocol
Rating: 5
Pros: A definitive guide to XMPP
Cons: Niche topic
Reviewed by: Mike James

This is the only book available on the topic of XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) which grew out of the original Jabber project and builds on its core protocols. This is essentially a realtime communication protocol that could be used to build applications such as Microsoft Live Messenger. It’s almost a standard and it is claimed that it is in use by over 10 million people but about the only mass market application that uses it is Google Talk and Google Wave, which is an extension to the protocol. So buying this book is a bit of an investment in the future unless you already have an XMPP project under way.

If you do want to or think you might want to make use of XMPP then this book does seem be a definitive guide.