I know this is beating a dead horse, but this whole messaging/email and social media business just seems like such a useless zero-sum game to me. I get that these companies become valuable, but I don't think they're adding much value to the world. Definitely not in proportion to their valuation. In video conferencing, there are at least some hard issues being solved to make that work, and it's improving over time.
Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email
121–130 of 139 posts
Re: Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't looked too deeply into emailio or front, but the solution to me looks a lot more like a mix of reddit and discourse (community/forum) than anything else. I'd love to see something that looks and feels like a forum than IM/chat. Systems like Slack are great for quick collaboration, but not ideal for persisting and disseminating information across diverse/large teams and organizations. I want to go to my mess…
The best workplace communication tool I used was effectively just a Usenet newsreader. Ie, topic-based threaded shared email. With a good client that shows eg the number of new messages on a thread, or only unreads etc, ie standard email stuff, nothing else comes close IMO to that for efficiency and clarity. I'd add in IM for quick 1-to-1 chats but that's all.
Usenet doesn't actually have threading. It's just a hueristic hack generated by clients.
Re: Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email
#123Disclaimer: I work on Emailio ( https://emailio.com ), a YC company that is a direct competitor to Front. We help you build healthy email habits. Slack is detrimental to team communication in several ways, and bringing it to email is a mistake imho. Slack combines the stress and urgency of text messaging with the importance of email. Your Slack becomes a Facebook or Twitter feed - another infinite feed that addicts y…
Agreed. I see a lot of communication moving into dropbox paper documents, instead of better communication tooling.
Re: Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't looked too deeply into emailio or front, but the solution to me looks a lot more like a mix of reddit and discourse (community/forum) than anything else. I'd love to see something that looks and feels like a forum than IM/chat. Systems like Slack are great for quick collaboration, but not ideal for persisting and disseminating information across diverse/large teams and organizations. I want to go to my mess…
I Ctrl-F'ed for Twist, made by the team at Todoist, but couldn't find it. It has a way to go, but I found it the right mix of persistent, long-form discussion and decision making using Threads, and sync communication using Messages. It's the best of both worlds, if you can educate a team to use it properly.
I really wish we could self host Twist. I’d happily pay up for their license.
Re: Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email
#125Some years ago Slack advertised itself as a tool to replace e-mail too..
Re: Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean you still use Front as email... except you can invite users to threads and assign them to other people and it makes doing anything with a team so much more manageable instead of forwarding things around and being unsure if they have already been handled.
Isn’t that just forwarding and cc’ing? I’ll often have long threads where multiple chains will be going within it with different parties brought in. Not to sound like the Dropbox comment from back in the day, but cc’ing and forwarding are just the basics when it comes to email.
Yes but it works way better than forwarding and cc’ing. It’s like how they should have been.
Re: Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm an old guy now but this just sounds like a standard ticket system. What's the big deal?
Maybe ticketing systems have gotten better, but I've never used one where I didn't feel like I was "spending time" dealing with the ticket system. As of right now, I end up with discussions spread across email, SMS, phone, and an issue tracking system (Redmine). I think the main reason that happens is that I get delegated work and it often starts via email; "Please deal with this.", "Can we do this?", etc.. Based on…
The least capable ticketing system you can get away with is the best ticketing system.
We're just repeating the all the mistakes of prior CRM and ERP horror stories. Those were cautionary tales, not guidebooks.
Re: Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email
#128Off-topic: Does Apple allow you to self host & use on your website their San Francisco font? It appears this site is using San Francisco. https://sacra.com/static/fonts/SF-Pro-Text-Regular.837e72701...
thanks for the heads up, we will get this fixed
Re: Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
To say “slackifying” is offensive to Front. I HATE Slack. For me, it turns into a gross “pinging you” and overall is insanely annoying to be in channels and check back on information. Or, finding files or using search is Hell. Not to mention their insanely painful login experience. I am looking forward to its death at CRM. Front is the real deal. Hands down the greatest productivity software I’ve used in YEARS. If yo…
> Slack is best when you are just a drone on a project/channel (if that makes sense...). > Slack also is great when the conversation is heavily one sided. Honestly, that seems extremely unfair to me. It feels like you're using it wrong. In my experience, Slack is for conversations. The groups I'm in use it for tossing out random thoughts/questions... and people participate as they choose. If you're using in a way whe…
Eh, I still disagree.
Chat is definitely needed and important but nothing ever gets lost really by “tossing out random questions” in Front.
I would rethink twice how you are communicating in the work place. I find that messy and then forces people to juggle back “oh, yeah what did you Slack me about this the other day”. The most annoying people on Slack don’t realize they are annoying.
Either way to each it’s own. Check out Front and stay open minded to how you communicate in work place
Re: Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email
#130Disclaimer: I work on Emailio ( https://emailio.com ), a YC company that is a direct competitor to Front. We help you build healthy email habits. Slack is detrimental to team communication in several ways, and bringing it to email is a mistake imho. Slack combines the stress and urgency of text messaging with the importance of email. Your Slack becomes a Facebook or Twitter feed - another infinite feed that addicts y…
FYI - your home page doesn't load properly for users with (e.g. nextdns.io) tracker blocking. On your point, slack has brought fluidity and lightheartedness to our internal comms. IMHO less demanding than "chat apps" and way better than email chains for internal comms.
Looks totally broken for me. No styles at all and everything is misaligned.