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Instant Messaging for Teams

tesla.im

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Re: Instant Messaging for Teams

#21

Post by timfrietas »

This problem has been solved 100 different ways; offline with plenty of clients throughout the years and even online with Google chat and Facebook messenger.

What is your "different way"? What makes your solution more valuable? There is not enough of a pitch on the front page to get me to try it out.

Re: Instant Messaging for Teams

#22

Post by ak217 »

Here are some things that I've realized are must haves for modern team chat:

- Email messages when someone is mentioned but are offline

- Integration with source control, CI, and issue tracking systems being used, targeted by channel/group

- Ability to filter channels by conversation/users (includes some way to attach and track conversation topics on messages in the same channel)

- Web app with desktop notifications and ability to mute those notifications by type

Do the hard work of making these easy to configure and use, and you may be able to compete with hipchat/campfire/etc.

Re: Instant Messaging for Teams

#23

Post by mattzito »

jsnk wrote: post #4
claudius wrote: post #2

Call me old-fashioned, but I like to make informed decisions before signing up for something – so where are the specs? - What sort of encryption is used where? - How is this encryption ‘enforced’? - How are messages stored/logged and accessible to whom? - How highly available are these services? - How are users authenticated? - What limitations exist for use on tablets? - … Just calling something ‘real geeky’ and thr…

It's usually sufficient to be honest. 37signals' Campfire doesn't have information about some of the questions you answered on their website, but their app as you is wildly popular.

I think the 37signals guys benefit from their corporate/individual brands in that case. If you're just some person popping up on HN without that kind of historical track record, it's a lot easier to be dubious that the proper precautions have bene taken.

Re: Instant Messaging for Teams

#24

Post by xvolter »

yeleti wrote: post #5
claudius wrote: post #2

Call me old-fashioned, but I like to make informed decisions before signing up for something – so where are the specs? - What sort of encryption is used where? - How is this encryption ‘enforced’? - How are messages stored/logged and accessible to whom? - How highly available are these services? - How are users authenticated? - What limitations exist for use on tablets? - … Just calling something ‘real geeky’ and thr…

- AES 256 SSL - www.tesla.im works ONLY in an always on HTTPS mode. - Messages are visible ONLY to chat room members. - The servers are in an auto-scaling mode. - A combination of a valid email + bcrypt passwords. - A few UI glitches when using on low resolution/small screen tablets. Hope this helps. Have a nice day.

SSL is secure connections, but not message encryption. This still means the messages are visible to Tesla.im or any server that transfers the mssages, even if you do not log it at some point is available is cleartext. That poses a privacy risk just like the mass majority of modern communication apps. https://www.cyphrd.com/ is working on a new communication app that actually poses client-side encryption with proper key sharing to keep communication private between the participents.

Re: Instant Messaging for Teams

#25

Post by raylu »

ak217 wrote: post #22

Here are some things that I've realized are must haves for modern team chat: - Email messages when someone is mentioned but are offline - Integration with source control, CI, and issue tracking systems being used, targeted by channel/group - Ability to filter channels by conversation/users (includes some way to attach and track conversation topics on messages in the same channel) - Web app with desktop notifications…

How 'bout we just go with the unix philosophy and let you build these things yourself so that they have a chance of actually working?

Yes, I'm saying you should use IRC.

Re: Instant Messaging for Teams

#26

Post by omni »

raylu wrote: post #25
ak217 wrote: post #22

Here are some things that I've realized are must haves for modern team chat: - Email messages when someone is mentioned but are offline - Integration with source control, CI, and issue tracking systems being used, targeted by channel/group - Ability to filter channels by conversation/users (includes some way to attach and track conversation topics on messages in the same channel) - Web app with desktop notifications…

How 'bout we just go with the unix philosophy and let you build these things yourself so that they have a chance of actually working? Yes, I'm saying you should use IRC.

All of his points work just fine for me in Hipchat, except possibly the third bullet depending on what exactly you need. Hipchat does have search, though.

Re: Instant Messaging for Teams

#28

Post by raylu »

omni wrote: post #26
raylu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How 'bout we just go with the unix philosophy and let you build these things yourself so that they have a chance of actually working? Yes, I'm saying you should use IRC.

All of his points work just fine for me in Hipchat, except possibly the third bullet depending on what exactly you need. Hipchat does have search, though.

I think that's true for most things that don't follow the Unix philosophy and try to do too much. "Everything just works all the time, unless this and except for that sometimes depending on this but you can that."

Re: Instant Messaging for Teams

#29

Post by ak217 »

raylu wrote: post #25
ak217 wrote: post #22

Here are some things that I've realized are must haves for modern team chat: - Email messages when someone is mentioned but are offline - Integration with source control, CI, and issue tracking systems being used, targeted by channel/group - Ability to filter channels by conversation/users (includes some way to attach and track conversation topics on messages in the same channel) - Web app with desktop notifications…

How 'bout we just go with the unix philosophy and let you build these things yourself so that they have a chance of actually working? Yes, I'm saying you should use IRC.

I could build them myself and then watch them break over time, or I could pay someone else to do it, and have more time to build things that I really want to build. That's the point of SaaS.

Re: Instant Messaging for Teams

#30

Post by raylu »

ak217 wrote: post #29
raylu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How 'bout we just go with the unix philosophy and let you build these things yourself so that they have a chance of actually working? Yes, I'm saying you should use IRC.

I could build them myself and then watch them break over time, or I could pay someone else to do it, and have more time to build things that I really want to build. That's the point of SaaS.

And when you want something that isn't being built for you? You _can't_ build it yourself at that point because there's no text interface to consume.

My complaint isn't so much against SaaS as a whole as it is against things that violate the Unix philosophy. I'm against things that try to do many complex tasks and don't provide a simple text interface (or RESTful API or whatever).

The tradeoff is you get basic features all at once with little overhead. What you lose is any ability whatsoever to make other things work on top of the service/program/application/whatever you're using.

The reason this is always bad is because you're only a first time user once; you pay the startup/integration/setup/whatever cost once. After that, you're a user and you get to suffer under the poor or non-existent integrations forever. See also: http://xkcd.com/1205/

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