Re:Slack Platform Launch
by TheLogothete on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @02:25AM
(#10742863)
1) Take 300m in VC money.
2) VCs want their money back
3) Pull your hair for a a while.
4) Figure out a genius plan. Now you are an ecosystem! Nobody ever thought of that. You are a true silicon valley legend!
5) Profit
Or not.
Have you ever even USED Slack? The apps are amazing, it's 50% of why people use Slack. There have been apps since I've known about it which has been almost since it launched.
Slack's integrations are less powerful than many alternatives. Every chat system has integration options. They have very little to do with Slack's popularity.
50% that's a stretch.
Useful, yes, 1/2 of interactions, questionable.
Parent didn't say 50% of interactions were integrations, just that the integrations are 50% of the reason people use Slack and I agree. There are other somewhat comparable products that are a lot cheaper, yet don't deliver the same value with regards to integrations.
It's kind of weird actually. There's two sorts of people that defend these announcements, I've found:
The first thinks that they are going to build an "amazing" platform some day and that they'll follow this model for "growing revenue". So of course they defend it.
And then there's the second group that has some "great idea" who plans to build on Slack's platform. Personally, I look forward to 2 years of stories about how Slack was unfair to them, or changed the rules on them, or broke an API. Or didn't review fast enough, or any of the other complaints that pop up monthly about other closed platforms.