Jonathan, forgive me for being dense but this post seems off the mark to me. Realize I'm saying this as a Spark Ambassador whose nickname is "Sparky" because of my unabashed championing for Spark services. I've been using Spark since day one on 11/18/2014 (and love that I still have access to all those conversations on that day.) I've converted my family to using Spark, and we now plan family events in Spark spaces. I've used whiteboarding within Spark (and on the Spark Board) with my family to plan out floorplans for a remodel of our house.

The key word in that sentence above is "converted". What you are championing is exactly the same as Skype, WhatsApp, and others in that anyone can SIGN UP for an account and communicate to anyone else INside the service. What you are saying feels like championing that you've created a new language that doesn't require any translation between languages. All someone has to do is learn the new language and communicate in that language, and they'll never need to bother with a translator again. A Universal Translator isn't universal because everyone uses it, it is Universal in that it can speak to any other language.

Spark has immense potential and I continue to be a passionate advocator - but saying it offers Universal federation is only going to confuse your user base because of *their* preconceived notion of what that means.