The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next • Hacker News Board

Re: The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

#11

Post by mariorz » Fri, May 01, 2009, 9:50 PM UTC

joepestro wrote: post #10

The idea of real time communication is similar to IRC, but remember that it's just a protocol. The big difference here is what you can do with how that data is presented to users. There are some really neat things you can do with HTTP and a browser that IRC clients lack. The whole rendering a page with text, images, and markup together adds a lot to the experience that you just don't get with IRC. Great job friendfee…

mibbit's been experimenting a lot in this area directly. You should check it out.

Re: The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

#12

Post by paul » Fri, May 01, 2009, 9:51 PM UTC

octane wrote: post #4

> flowing, multi-person, real-time conversations. In other words, IRC? Every "next big thing" communication medium has been trying to replicate the IRC experience for the past 15 years. Twitter is the closest, it even has # and @ modifiers - I mean come on, this is getting pretty ridiculous. A stand-alone twitter client that shows a message from everyone that is posting to #topic and @messages directed to you? Last t…

And blogging is basically just a .plan file...

Re: The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

#13

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 01, 2009, 9:57 PM UTC

rms wrote: post #8

octane wrote: post #4

> flowing, multi-person, real-time conversations. In other words, IRC? Every "next big thing" communication medium has been trying to replicate the IRC experience for the past 15 years. Twitter is the closest, it even has # and @ modifiers - I mean come on, this is getting pretty ridiculous. A stand-alone twitter client that shows a message from everyone that is posting to #topic and @messages directed to you? Last t…

Have you used Friendfeed? It is what Twitter should be and it has the benefits of IRC with an order of magnitude more practicality. Unfortunately I almost never use Friendfeed; all of my friends are on Facebook.

[deleted]

Re: The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

#14

Post by ComputerGuru » Fri, May 01, 2009, 10:02 PM UTC

The difference between IRC and everything else is the organization of it all.

It's hard to track and organize real-time conversations.. they start off in one place and end up in another. And then even if that's fine, it's impossible to then categorize the results in any meaningful way that makes it easy for others not a part of the original discussion to go back and view the details of the (large) conversation.

The nature of emails and other "turn-based communication systems" makes people tend to make each individual "element" of the thread a standalone entity. A single has way better odds of making sense on its own than a single IRC message...

Re: The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

#15

Post by axod » Fri, May 01, 2009, 10:04 PM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #14

The difference between IRC and everything else is the organization of it all. It's hard to track and organize real-time conversations.. they start off in one place and end up in another. And then even if that's fine, it's impossible to then categorize the results in any meaningful way that makes it easy for others not a part of the original discussion to go back and view the details of the (large) conversation. The n…

They're very different forms of communication, suited to different uses. It's like telephone vs letter. Each has its place.

Re: The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

#16

Post by alphazero » Fri, May 01, 2009, 10:15 PM UTC

paul wrote: post #12

octane wrote: post #4

> flowing, multi-person, real-time conversations. In other words, IRC? Every "next big thing" communication medium has been trying to replicate the IRC experience for the past 15 years. Twitter is the closest, it even has # and @ modifiers - I mean come on, this is getting pretty ridiculous. A stand-alone twitter client that shows a message from everyone that is posting to #topic and @messages directed to you? Last t…

And blogging is basically just a .plan file...

Come on Paul. IM is hardly ancient geek history.

Re: The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

#17

Post by rms » Fri, May 01, 2009, 10:39 PM UTC

galtenberg wrote: post #3

So when will Google officially make this their social network?

~9 months after Friendfeed raises a Series B? Maybe Google will drop the billion to buy both Friendfeed and Twitter so we can get Twitter with the superior Friendfeed interface.

Re: The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

#18

Post by tumult » Fri, May 01, 2009, 10:46 PM UTC

galtenberg wrote: post #3

So when will Google officially make this their social network?

The Brazilians will just take it from us again :)

Re: The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

#19

Post by lacker » Fri, May 01, 2009, 11:12 PM UTC

alphazero wrote: post #16

paul wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And blogging is basically just a .plan file...

Come on Paul. IM is hardly ancient geek history.

IM and IRC are fundamentally different from twitter and friendfeed, because twitter and friendfeed have home pages with content. Deciding what goes on the home page is key functionality that wasn't in IM or IRC.

Re: The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

#20

Post by paul » Fri, May 01, 2009, 11:16 PM UTC

alphazero wrote: post #16

paul wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And blogging is basically just a .plan file...

Come on Paul. IM is hardly ancient geek history.

My point is not that they are the same, but that details matter a lot, and that just because there are parallels between two things, it does not make them the same thing. My .plan example was not made up -- that was an actual criticism from the early days of blogging (according to Jason Shellen, who was part of Blogger).