I tried HipChat for a project last year. It was an improvement over email because all the attachments were right there in the thread. The downside, after severa

I tried HipChat for a project last year. It was an improvement over email because all the attachments were right there in the thread. The downside, after several thousand lines of chat, it got difficult to find things. The fact that chat message appear at one size, then expand when the content is downloaded doesn't help. It's hard to read when everything is bouncing around like that. Easier than email, but I still hate it about as much as email. I've started using Trello and you know what, it's task-oriented paradigm of segmenting chats by breaking them into cards really works. It cuts the noise because each card is a topic. The topics can be rearranged in any logical form you choose. And when a task is done, well you might archive the card but it is essentially discarded from the collective thought stream. Maybe I'll end up hating it just as much as email. I haven't gotten there yet.