Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

quill.chat

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 79 posts

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#41

Post by wutbrodo »

tobych wrote: post #29

I am, it seems, in the market for this. But... I don't want to be alerted unless something is important and urgent . I was taught at college to use that distinction.[1] Not seeing the word "urgent" in the copy on the front page made me think the authors don't appreciate this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management#The_Eisenhower... At the risk of sounding like that bloke who wrote about how he wants to be…

It's beyond me that the culture at my current company doesn't understand this concept, so a few months into my tenure here, I took matters into my own hands and turned do-not-disturb on in my Slack and informed my team.

It was pretty vindicating to see multiple staff engineers follow my lead haha; when you get to a certain level of responsibility, the volume of Slack pings from people who need something from you makes it impossible to do any focused work.

The real problem here is that my co doesn't use email for things that aren't time-sensitive; avoiding email means removing the async channel, so my only option was to convert Slack to async.

The recent switch to remote has been challenging though, since there's no pressure valve of "come by my desk if it's time-sensitive". Slack's DnD mode has a "notify Anyway" option, but I've found that only higher-ups are comfortable using it, even though my status says "please feel free to notify".

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#42

Post by atoav »

As somebody who is often said to be right in the age bracket who should like things like these, I think in most cases I'd prefer email over this.

This is why: friction is not always a bad thing. Having to print out that mail twice before putting it into the envelope stops you from sending stupid stuff – it would just not be worth the effort, or you'd reconsider before you bring it to the mail. This means also friction saves you from reading a lot of unconsidered, badly worded and meaningless words, people would just easily write off their chest if it was frictionless.

The lack of friction in messengers is great for friends, family and loved ones – but I'd rather have work collegues either see me in person, call me, open a ticket or write me a nicely worded mail than chatting me up using a messenger at work. This is mostly due to the fact that many people can't keep messengers strictly work related. If you send five mails in a row because you always "forgot something", you look like an idiot. If you do the same in a messenger you will just come away as beeing casual. And the other side ends up having to filter through that mess. The energy you save by the lack of friction is payed by the other side.

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#44

Post by thewebcount »

luddep wrote: post #20
drannex wrote: post #16

Is this mac only? Are there plans for PC, Desktop, apps? The website /feels/ very mac-centric which is why I am assuming and that feels like a disastrous mistake if its the case.

(I work at Quill.) We're on all platforms! Can't have a team chat app unless the entire team is able to use it :)

So is it safe to assume you're using electron, then?

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#45

Post by bachmeier »

Sorry to be that guy but there are two big players in the chat industry, and this page does nothing to convince me that this product is superior. There are lots of smaller competitors, including Zulip and Twist, that already do what they claim to be their innovation. There's no product, just an "opportunity" to give your email to someone you've never heard of.

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#46

Post by alehul »

I'm a sucker for good design and your product looks quite sleek and beautiful, so if I was starting a company tomorrow, I might consider giving it a try. (As others mentioned, it does look a tad bit overwhelming).

What concerns me about whether Quill could succeed is: why would I choose this over Slack?

The whole 'threading' part could be accomplished via better onboarding and policy around Slack usage, and at the last startup I worked on, we were diligent about threading conversations on different topics already.

Is this a bet that tailoring the app around that 'threading' use-case and further encouraging its enforcement will be enough of a marginal improvement to take some market share, or is there more that's new here?

Also, what about those fun channels where you just chat and ramble with your colleagues about stuff outside of work hours? Would someone still need Slack for that, or would you have very large groups of DMs?

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#47

Post by quickthrower2 »

malux85 wrote: post #34

"We grew up with IRC" So your protocols are open and anyone can write a client and view the server source code? You know, like the spirit of IRC and the open internet? Or is it a bloated webkit "app", hosted on private servers?

I know in an ideal world developers would make their software free as in speech, but most of the time that translates to free as in beer, which means getting paid nothing. Paid proprietary services don’t meet ideals but they tend to provide good support for business customers who choose to use them.

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#48

Post by JoshTriplett »

luddep wrote: post #13
atonse wrote: post #6

Am I missing something here? It talks about focus but has an extremely busy UI with colors and icons in your face all the time. Maybe it's better to actually use it than see the screenshots?

(I work at Quill.) Everything in Quill is a thread -- which is quite a big shift from an IRC-like firehose (even with optional threading.) We've found the shift to have threading by default creates a behavior where you opt into just the conversations you care about, and don't have to skim through hundreds of messages to find what's relevant (or, say, replies to an earlier conversation.) May be hard to get across the…

> Everything in Quill is a thread

How does Quill compare to Zulip, which has the same philosophy (and is Open Source)?

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#49

Post by malux85 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #47
malux85 wrote: post #34

"We grew up with IRC" So your protocols are open and anyone can write a client and view the server source code? You know, like the spirit of IRC and the open internet? Or is it a bloated webkit "app", hosted on private servers?

I know in an ideal world developers would make their software free as in speech, but most of the time that translates to free as in beer, which means getting paid nothing. Paid proprietary services don’t meet ideals but they tend to provide good support for business customers who choose to use them.

I'm well aware of the dynamics of money in a capitalistic society. Especially for companies like this one who have taken funding and not launched a product yet.

My annoyance was them touting "we grew up using IRC" and then taking none of the hacker ethos from it. I'm not saying they have to abandon profit entirely, but I would like to have seen some openness in their protocols. Some mention of launching an open API. But nothing.

Let's project forward a little using lessons from the past : This is a company, that has taken funding, has not launched a product, and is presumably not profitable. So if they run out of cash they're going to say to their investors, we have run out of money, and the investors are going to say what are your assets?

- The code

- A huge database of private conversations

Can you see why I'm not rushing to put all my private conversations in there?

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#50

Post by tobr »

oefrha wrote: post #39

I don’t see a download link or anything, just an email-harvesting “notify me” box. (Please do correct me.) Is it really a Show HN if you only have screenshots to show?

No, I would say this submission clearly breaks the rules[1].

Still, looks like an interesting, well-designed product, so kudos to that. Just not a good Show HN.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

Post reply on HN