Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#161

Post by pavel_lishin » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:25 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #127

pavel_lishin wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Few organizations care. And those that do get left in the dust by organizations that don't. Are you saying that organizations that care to keep secrets get left behind by those that don't? That sounds kind of ridiculous.

We live in interesting times. Organizations that refuse to use Slack are at a disadvantage. When employees show up and realize there's no Slack, they start to analyze all other company decisions. How much effort could be saved just by using Slack? Those secrets had better be important to justify this loss. There are alternatives. Rocket Chat is self-hosted, and maybe it's sufficient. But second-place software will al…

> If your reasoning is solely "We are a company, so we have secrets," that's justifiable only in narrow domains, like a security company.

My friend's company used Hipchat over Slack for precisely that reason - they're a security company, one you've likely heard of.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#162

Post by ethbro » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #122

ethbro wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. These purchases seem to work the best when they're used for defensive purposes and to round out a product offering that already has a substantial userbase . Whatever gadgets they might hang off the app, they're fundamentally a way for people to talk to each other. If you don't have the people, why would you need a slick implementation? As you mentioned, the app would go out of vogue and users would move on. A…

> Of all the mega-corps, Amazon is one of the few that has all the pieces and user-engagement, but no social component. Honest question, since I might be out of the loop here in Europe, but what user engagement pieces does Amazon have then ? I use Amazon for shopping and AWS, and would have no idea what other products they have that are dominating a market. Is this about Kindle ?

The shopping portal, reviews, AWS, Kindle, and Echo are all direct touchpoints with users of some sort.

If you're going to launch social, you could do a lot worse for a starting point...

And in a broader sense, I'm much more optimistic about building a social network to unify disparate features that people already love, vs imposing one from the top down (e.g. G+). FB only got away with the latter because of being first, and seems to be pivoting to backfill as much functionality around it as quickly as possible.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#163

Post by nerfhammer » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

maitrik wrote: post #3

Really believe that Microsoft should have bought Slack. It makes perfect sense for them and aligns with their vision to be the productivity center of everyone's workflow. Microsoft doesnt understand this space at all. Look what they are doing to Skype by making it more like Snapchat when their main use case is business related. Teams also feels so unfinished.

Don't they already own Yammer?

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#164

Post by sinatra » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:39 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #130

sinatra wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all asked the same question about Facebook. All social networks before Facebook had faded away. But, Facebook didn't. Potential Slack buyers think that Slack is also here to stay in a similar manner. EDIT: I'm not saying Slack is Facebook. One reason why I think Slack may survive longer than ICQ, Skype etc is how well integrated it is with all other services. For a tool to replace Slack, it should also provide the…

Facebook isn't just about the people on it at this instant, it is about the accumulated history people build up on it. Exporting your Facebook profile is a labyrinthian effort few would consider. Switching chat providers is as simple as getting everyone to use the new thing and going from there, there is little to no baggage to bring with you.

I don't think that's true. Switching to another messaging service means you lose all past messages. It also means you need to integrate all other services (like Github, Google Doc, Travis, and many others) to this new messaging service. That is a lot of friction!

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#165

Post by lgas » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

vesak wrote: post #41

lgas wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not a very good advocate. You didn't even give a single reason someone should look into Matrix.

Does reasoning ever work in marketing, though?

I'd love to say it's the only kind that's effective on me, but obviously that's not true. I do believe it's the most effective on me though. If nothing else it's the only kind I intentionally engage with on a regular basis.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#166

Post by tdburn » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:48 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #75

tdburn wrote: post #63

One article yesterday suggested that the Amazon non compete lawsuit agaimay their former AWS employee might indicate that they're planning on getting into the business productivity market. With this news that might have credibility

They're already in that market to some extent. https://aws.amazon.com/workdocs/ https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/

Thanks. I want familiar with their efforts

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#167

Post by anth1988 » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

Oh good, I was worried they would escape the conglomerates. Can't have that nowadays.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#168

Post by latencyloser » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

nerfhammer wrote: post #163

maitrik wrote: post #3

Really believe that Microsoft should have bought Slack. It makes perfect sense for them and aligns with their vision to be the productivity center of everyone's workflow. Microsoft doesnt understand this space at all. Look what they are doing to Skype by making it more like Snapchat when their main use case is business related. Teams also feels so unfinished.

Don't they already own Yammer?

Yes, they do.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#169

Post by qq66 » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

sidegrid wrote: post #150

hkmurakami wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would possibly be a first step for AWS to start moving up the stack.

What does that mean?

It means Amazon renting you access to business software rather than access to computers on which you can run your own business software.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#170

Post by blazespin » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:53 PM UTC

simonrobb wrote: post #45

blazespin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with selling isn't the money, the problem is what do you do with the rest of your life. If you sell, that is most likely your peak. This is what zuck and the Snapchat guy was thinking. If they sell, that's it, they are done. Life is over as they know it.

I'm sure most entrepreneur types run off the "thrill of the chase", and a big exit would momentarily dilute the initial mission. But you are waayyy overstating that effect. You've suddenly got a massive amount of capital to execute on the things you've been dreaming up along the way but have never been able to do before. Zuck sure had a company of thousands of employees to look after. And even if your mission was alw…

Bill Gates had to go, he was dragging MSFT down after the court case. Besides, he'd being doing it a looong time. He probably already hit Peak Bill and he knew it.

Elon is an outlier of grand proportions.