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Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

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Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#141

Post by Latty »

dimino wrote: post #114
jerf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, all the pieces to make Slack have been around for a while. But nobody ever put them together properly. So the fact that all the pieces existed doesn't count for very much in the end. Nor was it obvious that if someone put it together properly it would achieve commercial success. I was theoretically in the right place at the right time to have put together something like Slack at my job, but there wa…

What people are saying is that not only have the pieces to make Slack been around for awhile, but IRC has implemented those pieces successfully for 20 years. The only "innovation" Slack provided was the UI, and that's textbook "bad startup idea", because of how easy it is for someone else to step into the space.

Except, that's not true. As I pointed out with History, IRC does not do that. Even if you count hacks like bots or additional services, it doesn't do it well, easily, or as a core part of the thing that is there the second you set it up without extra effort.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#142

Post by Latty »

kzisme wrote: post #101
Latty wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bots? It's awkward. In Slack, you scroll up. No bot is going to be as simple to use and obvious as that. If you do manage to integrate it that well, you will need to set up the bot, which is a separate service, get your clients to understand the bot, etc... It's like suggesting a tin can with strings to solve a communication problem. A rough, imperfect solution. Who gives a damn about innovative? It may have been obv…

I'm sure OP was using bots as an example - IRC bouncers exist ,and if that's too technical for you then there are multiple other solutions.

Sure, and none of those solutions are as good as 'scroll up' after clicking five buttons to make a slack team. By quite a way.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#144

Post by oliv__ »

ascotan wrote: post #138
Mc_Big_G wrote: post #3

It's funny that Slack thinks they've perfectly balanced a unique and special snowflake on the tip of a unicorn's horn when what they've really done is added a pretty UI to IRC. It's a chat room. With channels. So, sorry to tell you guys, but it's not innovative, it's lucky. We had chat rooms back in 1995. Yes, that scrappy startup Microsoft will not have too much trouble implementing a chat room and they don't need l…

Your absolutely right. There is really nothing innovative here. But never underestimate the power of eye-candy. Think about apple products. You could throw your hands up and say "but there's nothing innovative here! they just built a pretty UI on top of BSD and people have been using Unix operating systems for 50 years!". True, but it's the pretty UI that connects it to the masses. Slack took a concept that has been…

...and black turtlenecks

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#145

Post by Kiro »

Mc_Big_G wrote: post #3

It's funny that Slack thinks they've perfectly balanced a unique and special snowflake on the tip of a unicorn's horn when what they've really done is added a pretty UI to IRC. It's a chat room. With channels. So, sorry to tell you guys, but it's not innovative, it's lucky. We had chat rooms back in 1995. Yes, that scrappy startup Microsoft will not have too much trouble implementing a chat room and they don't need l…

The big difference for me is that with Slack anyone can create their own network with their own plethora of channels. You can't really compare it with traditional IRC where everyone is on the same IRC network.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#146

Post by Latty »

threatofrain wrote: post #125
Latty wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really weirded out that people can't see the value Slack added. Having your messages stored while you are offline is hugely valuable. If I have been out of signal range on a train, I want to be able to look at history on my phone once I'm back in range of a cell tower. Beyond that, a well made UI for web, desktop and phone that is consistent is valuable. 'Adding a pretty UI' isn't a zero-effort or skill thing. No…

I didn't read Mc_Big_G's post as negating the value of Slack, but rather the technological innovativeness of Slack, and when I look at HipChat, Kato, or any of the various competitors in that space when Slack was born, I don't see why Slack's victory was so obvious. That's why I put a little more weight on the luck theory.

They provided a ton of value by bringing things together, by making everything easy and work intuatively. I guess my point is I think too many people are indeed dismissing slack as being lucky, or just pushing with heavy marketing, when I think they actually did something of value we can learn from.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#147

Post by dasil003 »

murukesh_s wrote: post #25
harryjo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to update the old canard. "If you could have invented Slack... you would have invented Slack." Execution is everything.

Execution is everything? Then Microsoft is also copying their execution. What's wrong with that? Why going overboard and trying to troll Microsoft?

You can't copy execution. In the trenches every day decisions are made. The quality of the product that comes out deeply reflects the team that made it. You can clone an implementation relatively easily, and Microsoft has a ton of smart teams and has really upped its game recently, but Microsoft's next feature will not be the same as Slack's next feature, the cultures are just too different.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#148

Post by Latty »

NDizzle wrote: post #68
Latty wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but are those the only people using Slack? Most of us communicate with people for whom that's non-trivial. Even if it is, it's effort to set up, has to run somewhere, and it doesn't integrate well. It's a crappy solution to the problem, when Slack's is 'scroll up'.

In my experiences using Slack, the people who aren't the normal IRC crowd (take that as you will, heh) fall out of common use after a short period of time. You're left with roughly the IRC crowd. That may be dependent on team dynamics.

Obviously, small sample size, but that's not my experience at all. I've used Slack in two or three different environments for 1y+, and people didn't seem to drop it.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#149

Post by Latty »

geofft wrote: post #98
Latty wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email sucks for real-time communcation. Most of the other IM applications you list suck for multi-person communication. Quassel looks good, but clearly harder to set up than Slack. People always point at everything and go 'this stuff existed!' - even if all Slack did was pull everything together into a single cohesive environment, that's useful to people, it provides value. I'm shocked people are shocked by that idea…

It absolutely provides value! But I don't think the commenter above is claiming that it doesn't provide value. They're claiming it's not innovative. Some of the most important work in the tech industry is highly valuable and not one bit innovative. CRUD apps that bridge data from two different parts of an organization are amazingly valuable and amazingly important, but have no innovation. There's nothing wrong with t…

Yeah, except people were saying they were hoping Microsoft would kill Slack, as though it's some cardinal sin to not be innovative. (And I contest that, Slack definitely bought things together that other people didn't. It's obvious in hindsight, but so was Dropbox, for example).

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#150

Post by threatofrain »

Latty wrote: post #146
threatofrain wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read Mc_Big_G's post as negating the value of Slack, but rather the technological innovativeness of Slack, and when I look at HipChat, Kato, or any of the various competitors in that space when Slack was born, I don't see why Slack's victory was so obvious. That's why I put a little more weight on the luck theory.

They provided a ton of value by bringing things together, by making everything easy and work intuatively. I guess my point is I think too many people are indeed dismissing slack as being lucky, or just pushing with heavy marketing, when I think they actually did something of value we can learn from.

But what would you say about HipChat or other competitors? Why didn't HipChat win? Was there a critical feature they missed or botched?

Providing value is not the whole story. That's why I begin looking for alternative factors -- like luck and circumstance.

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