Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by cookiecaper on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:39PM (#11300492)

This is one of those applications that is always being rewritten somewhere. JWZ's law may even be relevant here: "Every program expands until it reads mail". It seems there is always a large group people out there working on messengers.

The question really is what made Slack special. Why is it the Slack revolution and not the HipChat revolution? What about the veneer has allowed it to become a pervasive trend, expanding into non-tech companies and being hailed as a permanent replacement for most emails? This is the only interesting question around Slack, since, as numerous other commenters have pointed out, it doesn't really bring anything to the table that the messaging space hasn't seen a good number of times before.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by frio on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @05:43PM (#11300912)

It could've been the HipChat revolution. It was so close to being just that. As a user of both HipChat and Slack, however, the difference is vast. Slack had a rich API an integrations well before HipChat did; presents rich content substantially more attractively; had first-class mobile support off the bat; tracks unread messages when you're offline (this one is extremely frustrating in HipChat); made being a member of multiple teams simple; had a much smoother signup process... etc.

The organisation I work for got on board the HipChat train just as Slack was gaining momentum. While it's cheaper, I think if we'd had Slack we'd have much greater adoption.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by auntyJemima on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:42PM (#11300518)

Revolution? Drinking the kool aid much? My team has it. We've had it for a month or two now. There has only been a handful of posts and most of them are "TGIF" posts.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by cookiecaper on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:46PM (#11300543)

>Drinking the kool aid much?

As you can tell from my post which states that Slack doesn't offer anything unique or special, uh, no, I'm not drinking the kool-aid.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack by auntyJemima on Wednesday March 16, 2016 @04:59PM (#11300627)

I realize you're skeptical too, but I'm saying I wouldn't even go as far as to call it a revolution. Call it a trend if you'd like, that's giving it too much credit.

[ Parent | on HN ]