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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

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.

auntyJemima 11y ago
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.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  >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.
  - auntyJemima 11y ago
    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.
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frio 11y ago
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.

auntyJemima 11y ago

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.

cookiecaper 11y ago
>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.
- auntyJemima 11y ago
  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.

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frio 11y ago

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.