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Slack Platform Launch

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Re: Slack Platform Launch

#161

Post by tommorris »

rfrank wrote: post #55
radlad wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is people like using it. UX counts for a lot. The massive amount of integrations for it helps a lot too. Their goal, from what I've read, is to be a giant log for everything in your company, not just a chatroom service.

"Their goal, from what I've read, is to be a giant log for everything in your company..." Why would you ever want to entrust a log of everything in your company to a third party service? Honestly curious.

Slack is classic "shadow IT". It isn't introduced or managed by IT. It is introduced by users. If IT departments were in charge of Slack, you'd have to have seven layers of managerial interference before you could open a new channel and it'd have the usability of Lotus Notes.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#162

Post by distances »

bossx wrote: post #78
hayksaakian wrote: post #46

Can someone who uses slack comment on the value over skype for example? It seems like text chat is hard to get wrong, and with so many options, I wonder why (real) people choose slack specifically.

In the 90s Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was extremely popular, you connect to a public server, and join a #channel and chat with people, send files, share links etc. There were thousands of ways to extend IRC, through custom clients, bots, scripts. Slack builds upon a lot of core concepts that IRC had but differs in a few ways. 1) Simplicity, you can get up and running in a few minutes and have your whole team connected…

I was a bit hesitant first when our company first started using Flowdock (a Slack competitor), but it turned out to be just great. For example: flows (or chat rooms) with inbox for integrations to e-mail, GitHub, CI and so on -- discussion can be directly related to a certain item, such as a failed build!

And of course, discussion threads. This is something Slack still doesn't have, and is a one of the reasons to stay with Flowdock instead. Everyone knows what happens with IRC channels when there's hundreds of people and multiple simultaneous discussions. Good luck trying to follow the conversation if you weren't following it realtime.

That said, it sadly seems that Slack will eat the whole pie, and it is probably the most future-proof choice at the moment.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#163

Post by 1stop »

wodenokoto wrote: post #155
cromwellian wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why slack is popular, I use it. But Slack's success is it's UI, and that is not dependent on a centralized close protocol. We could have a rich ecosystem of competing chat clients over a distributed messaging bus, it's just that there's no economic viability in it. If SMTP were re-invented today, it would never be open and federated.

A big part of a good chat UI is the knowledge of how things looks in the other end. Real world friendships have ended because of how emoji are rendered differently on different phones.

... Did you just make that up?

Slack could still have an awesome UX and be open, people would use it out of choice because it has the best UX.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#164

Post by Matthias247 »

abrkn wrote: post #10

Every program attempts to expand until it has an app store. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

Don't think that's necessarily true. Yes, lots of programs implement app stores or plugin systems. But often the users also don't want to fiddle with add-ons, their installation and settings. They want a good and well-integrated out-of-the box experience. Especially if they are not from the tech domain.

E.g. let's look at Eclipse: It was based purely on AddOns right from the beginning. And still many people want to replace it with other things (probably without AddOns).

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#165

Post by sly010 »

cromwellian wrote: post #150
babuskov wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea why you were down-voted. It's the truth. Now, to answer why is it so hard to understand? Many people here are programmers/engineers and fail to understand how marketing and nice packaging can sell. Especially if they are old enough to know how IRC works. To extend what you wrote, I'd compare Slack with iPhone. All the tech. to build the iPhone was there, but Apple managed to put it all together in beau…

Think of it this way. Did the Web Browser need to be a proprietary closed protocol in order for the massive improvement over Gopher/WAIS or other end user hypertext information systems back then? No, Netscape/Mozilla didn't need to "own" HTTP and HTML completely, and turn the Web into a giant App Store in order to innovate in the Browser client, neither did Google, Apple, or MS. At various points, proprietary extensi…

Actually, many features of the modern web (DOM, XmlHttpRequest, box-sizing: border-box) were implemented by IE first.

Unfortunately it's not in the best interest of anyone capable of engineering open/distributed platforms to actually do so. Why would they? It's way easier and more profitable to create something on your own terms, something you can control. I would risk that it's better for the customer.

People are flocking from WordPress to SquareSpace, from self hosted SMTP servers to Google, from private hosting to cloud hosting.

Is this a good thing in the long term? I don't think so either, but doing it any other way would be heroism and we are short on heroes.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#167

Post by mugsie »

netcan wrote: post #113
rfrank wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Their goal, from what I've read, is to be a giant log for everything in your company..." Why would you ever want to entrust a log of everything in your company to a third party service? Honestly curious.

First, because the (perceived) risk is relatively small, both of damage and the chances of damage. Second (this is the point I think hn-like forums grossly underestimate) is because the alternatives are not really alternatives. In practice the likelihood of using Irc or some open source chat within a company with the same wide buy in as slack (or Skype etc) is 0. The way to judge this is adoption.

HipChat is a real on premise alternative.

It may not be quite as "slick" looking, but it works very well.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#168

Post by FatalBaboon »

babuskov wrote: post #146
wh-uws wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THANK YOU. This is why slack is winning. They took many of the concepts of what makes irc great abd put a much better user experience on top. Why is that so hard for people to understand? This happens over and over again. - Google wasn't the first search engine. - Facebook wasn't the first social network. - Microsoft didn't build the first operating system. They all just did it in a way that appealed to mass amounts…

I have no idea why you were down-voted. It's the truth. Now, to answer why is it so hard to understand? Many people here are programmers/engineers and fail to understand how marketing and nice packaging can sell. Especially if they are old enough to know how IRC works. To extend what you wrote, I'd compare Slack with iPhone. All the tech. to build the iPhone was there, but Apple managed to put it all together in beau…

I think you're missing cromwellian's point: you could have made the same thing while upholding open values.

For example if it was a rich client based on IRC, I could join in on a chat without being a slack customer. I could also be a customer of a competitor that would offer something similar, but more tailored to my usage. Now that would move the chat ecosystem further.

But that is not happening, because Slack's business model is hegemonic: they want everyone to use Slack to maximize profits.

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#169

Post by vincentleeuwen »

cromwellian wrote: post #150
babuskov wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea why you were down-voted. It's the truth. Now, to answer why is it so hard to understand? Many people here are programmers/engineers and fail to understand how marketing and nice packaging can sell. Especially if they are old enough to know how IRC works. To extend what you wrote, I'd compare Slack with iPhone. All the tech. to build the iPhone was there, but Apple managed to put it all together in beau…

Think of it this way. Did the Web Browser need to be a proprietary closed protocol in order for the massive improvement over Gopher/WAIS or other end user hypertext information systems back then? No, Netscape/Mozilla didn't need to "own" HTTP and HTML completely, and turn the Web into a giant App Store in order to innovate in the Browser client, neither did Google, Apple, or MS. At various points, proprietary extensi…

I agree, but you can't blame them for trying to stretch their monopoly imo

Re: Slack Platform Launch

#170

Post by ris »

cromwellian wrote: post #104

Facebook F8 all over again in the sense of startups throwing the success or failure of their company onto a proprietary centralized system that can block or cut them off for any reason. Or rather, another incarnation of IRC chat bots, email listservs, and stuff that's been around forever as commodity autoresponders, only now it's worth millions in investments to write the equivalent of a weekend hack IRC bot because…

And it's going to be extremely fun to watch when Slack gets acquired by one of the real big guys and the product itself gets grandfathered (or "absorbed" into something else).

Don't say "it'll never happen"...

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