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Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

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Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#61

Post by kbenson »

hrayr wrote: post #35
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…

"So, sorry to tell you guys, but it's not innovative, it's lucky." If only luck made slack, then doesn't that mean Microsoft will need to be equally lucky to succeed?

You often have to be lucky (in timing, in marketing, in whatever) to be the first. Once you've proven the market, later entrants don't have to be lucky. You've already given them a path to follow. They can follow you, letting you do the regular trailblazing while they easily follow and devote their effort into figuring out how and when to jump out in front.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#62

Post by reitanqild »

fizzbatter wrote: post #45
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…

Hate? Everyone i know loves slack. I love slack. I've used it for my last two companies for (~many) years now. That doesn't make it innovative though, imo. I can't think of a single feature they've done that is innovative. Attaching a file to a message?. Searching history? These aren't new or special in any way shape or form. What slack did far more than UI, was UX. Top to bottom, it's a very nice UX. It's why i love…

> I can't think of a single feature they've done that is innovative.

This reminds me a lot of HN dismissing Dropbox on the original show HN or something:

"We have git, rsync, FTP. We can hack something like this together in an afternoon."

Except that was before Dropbox went ahead to become a huge success.

This time we are saying this after Slack has already established itself. :-]

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#63

Post by Eridrus »

Latty wrote: post #27
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…

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…

Slack is undoubtedly better than IRC, but so is Flowdock or HipChat and the other players that existed in this space before.

Slack's innovation was getting a huge funding round, blowing it on advertising to mainstream non-tech markets and trying to build a competitive moat with 3rd party integrations that other developers are incentivized to make on their own due to Slack's large user base.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#65

Post by nkw »

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…

I know from a technical standpoint Slack is just a pretty UI on top of IRC. However, consider for instance, one of the Slack teams I use on a daily basis is a law firm. The difference of getting users at a non-tech company, such as a law firm, to use a chat client like Slack vs an IRC client is a huge chasm. I've been guilty several times myself of saying UIs or veneers over long existing technology isn't that impressive and dismissing companies that do so, but companies have made billions doing just that.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#66

Post by wikibob »

geofft wrote: post #31
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…

> added a pretty UI to IRC And they didn't even add it, Metalab did. http://metalab.co/projects/slack/

Wow, really fascinating. Thanks for this

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#68

Post by NDizzle »

Latty wrote: post #58
NDizzle wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a persistent to IRC backlog since 1998. This is a simple task for anyone who reads a site that is called "hacker news".

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.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#69

Post by antisthenes »

ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger and IRC were all entrenched at different points in time.

To give a parallel, so were Teamspeak, Ventrillo, Mumble, Raidcall, Xfire or whatever have you (for gaming at least).

Chat rooms and VOIP solutions are commodities and have been for a decade or more. Sure, some companies do some more value-add than others in terms of service and support, but at the end of the day it's still a commodity and no amount of rationalization and wishful thinking will change that.

Which is why their mimicking of Apple ad seems condescending and arrogant. Personal PCs were at the top of the technological know-how in the early 80s. Glorified chat rooms haven't been new or high tech for 20 years (IRC is how old?). In fact the only innovation in recent years seems to be end-to-end encryption, which Microsoft seems to be on board with.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#70

Post by Latty »

geofft wrote: post #38
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…

Email does the stored-history thing. So does every other mobile IM app I have (the built-in SMS app, Google Hangouts, BBM, etc.). Furthermore, in the IRC world that's not uncommon either; Quasseldroid does this. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iskrembile...

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.

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