HipChat is now free for unlimited users • Hacker News Board

Re: HipChat is now free for unlimited users

#121

Post by brown9-2 » Tue, May 27, 2014, 11:14 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #118

Last I tried HipChat, it was a terrible experience simply because I wanted to not run yet another application and instead use Adium. They do support XMPP but to get it working you have to do magic. After I did the magic, I had chat up and running but lo and behold: file transfers did not work. Thankfully, this is when our team decided the experiment was over. We went back to using IRC. What fundamental problem do the…

Persistence. It's nice to be able to see what conversations you missed while offline or overnight, especially if you have teammates distributed across the globe.

Persistence also allows you to search through or link people to old conversations.

Re: HipChat is now free for unlimited users

#122

Post by namityadav » Tue, May 27, 2014, 11:16 PM UTC

joeblau wrote: post #3

HipChat is probably under fire from Slack. That's why I think they are making this change, because I just made the transition a few weeks ago and Slack has been amazing. Once you go Slack, you never go back.

Can we run multiple organizations from the same client of Slack? That and an ability to refer to a specific comment/message (like Flowdock's threaded messages) are two things that can make me switch from Hipchat.

Re: HipChat is now free for unlimited users

#123

Post by lobster_johnson » Tue, May 27, 2014, 11:21 PM UTC

dserodio wrote: post #88

astrodust wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HipChat native client for OS X has been fantastic, plus there's an iOS client that pairs well with it, giving you push notifications for mentions. It's not clear if Slack has this too.

Slack has nice native clients for OS X, Android and iOS too.

I wouldn't call the OS X client "native". Sure, it's an app, but it's just a wrapper around the web page.

Re: HipChat is now free for unlimited users

#124

Post by Thaxll » Tue, May 27, 2014, 11:23 PM UTC

Is Slack cloud based? If so it's a big problem for a lot of compagnies, most of them don't want to host their chat service to an external provider, that's where Hipchat is very useful. You can host your own server in-house.

Re: HipChat is now free for unlimited users

#125

Post by IgorPartola » Tue, May 27, 2014, 11:23 PM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #121

IgorPartola wrote: post #118

Last I tried HipChat, it was a terrible experience simply because I wanted to not run yet another application and instead use Adium. They do support XMPP but to get it working you have to do magic. After I did the magic, I had chat up and running but lo and behold: file transfers did not work. Thankfully, this is when our team decided the experiment was over. We went back to using IRC. What fundamental problem do the…

Persistence. It's nice to be able to see what conversations you missed while offline or overnight, especially if you have teammates distributed across the globe. Persistence also allows you to search through or link people to old conversations.

So XMPP lets you do this too. Why invent a new protocol?

Re: HipChat is now free for unlimited users

#126

Post by idle_processor » Tue, May 27, 2014, 11:25 PM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #121

IgorPartola wrote: post #118

Last I tried HipChat, it was a terrible experience simply because I wanted to not run yet another application and instead use Adium. They do support XMPP but to get it working you have to do magic. After I did the magic, I had chat up and running but lo and behold: file transfers did not work. Thankfully, this is when our team decided the experiment was over. We went back to using IRC. What fundamental problem do the…

Persistence. It's nice to be able to see what conversations you missed while offline or overnight, especially if you have teammates distributed across the globe. Persistence also allows you to search through or link people to old conversations.

Overnight is covered by leaving a client running, with logging. Offline is covered by using a BNC[0]. These solutions are years old, but perhaps less user-friendly than hipchat.

There are a plethora of IRC clients to choose from one various platforms, but there's only the one hipchat. IRC is also an open protocol.

So, hipchat's only real chance is trying to be the Apple of IRC--they must nail UX and marketing to the tech-hapless to have a real chance.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_(software)

Re: HipChat is now free for unlimited users

#127

Post by brown9-2 » Tue, May 27, 2014, 11:32 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #125

brown9-2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Persistence. It's nice to be able to see what conversations you missed while offline or overnight, especially if you have teammates distributed across the globe. Persistence also allows you to search through or link people to old conversations.

So XMPP lets you do this too. Why invent a new protocol?

Because a company feels there is money to be made by offering a simpler solution to interested customers.

Does every product really need a technical justification? If every person at your company is comfortable setting up email clients, IRC bots, and bouncers, then this isn't a product for you.

If you would rather just pay someone $2/person/month to set this up for you, then this is the product for you.

Re: HipChat is now free for unlimited users

#128

Post by mplewis » Tue, May 27, 2014, 11:35 PM UTC

latchkey wrote: post #15

Reminder: https://blog.hipchat.com/2014/04/25/hey-were-changing-our-te... and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649524

This was the reason my company moved to Slack. There's no way for our boss to turn off the ability to read our PMs, so there's no way for us to know he's not.

No one in the company wants this—we expect PMs to be private.

Re: HipChat is now free for unlimited users

#129

Post by SkyMarshal » Tue, May 27, 2014, 11:39 PM UTC

dserodio wrote: post #88

astrodust wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HipChat native client for OS X has been fantastic, plus there's an iOS client that pairs well with it, giving you push notifications for mentions. It's not clear if Slack has this too.

Slack has nice native clients for OS X, Android and iOS too.

OS X client appears to be wrapped HTML rather than native.

Re: HipChat is now free for unlimited users

#130

Post by IgorPartola » Tue, May 27, 2014, 11:41 PM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #127

IgorPartola wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So XMPP lets you do this too. Why invent a new protocol?

Because a company feels there is money to be made by offering a simpler solution to interested customers. Does every product really need a technical justification? If every person at your company is comfortable setting up email clients, IRC bots, and bouncers, then this isn't a product for you. If you would rather just pay someone $2/person/month to set this up for you, then this is the product for you.

It needs some kind of justification, otherwise it will die. HipChat being offered for free may extend it's life, but I still don't see a point. Everyone has access to GChat, so 99% of the problems are already solved. The dev shops would probably rather use IRC especially since the experience for power users is so terrible. That does not leave room for HipChat in this world.