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You're thinking like a developer. You see Slack as a realtime chat protocol and think there's already a million solutions. You need to think about it in a busi

by ig1 10y ago

You're thinking like a developer. You see Slack as a realtime chat protocol and think there's already a million solutions. You need to think about it in a business context. Pre-slack virtually no businesses used realtime group chat. Developers sometimes used IRC, HipChat, etc. and some corporates used Lync/Skype For Business/Yammer but these were terrible solutions for the majority of businesses. Slack didn't succeed by taking marketshare from IRC, it succeeded by bring real-time group chat to people who never had it. That was a new market with real questions as to whether there was any demand for real-time chat among the wider business world.

balls187 10y ago
> You need to think about it in a business context. Pre-slack virtually no businesses used realtime group chat. Um, BBM?
- elliotec 10y ago
  Are you seriously comparing Black Berry Messenger to Slack? I had to Google BBM, and laughed when I saw that because people in businesses did not use Black Berry, or BBM, in any capacity even close to Slack. I agree with most points on your original post though.
  - balls187 10y ago
    Straw man. I wasn't comparing slack's feature set to BBM, just refuting the point that before Slack, barely any businesses used group messaging. > Pre-slack virtually no businesses used realtime group chat. BBM, Real time group messaging, used by businesses. It was popular long before group messaging was popular. Yes blackberry is now a joke, but there was a time when many businesses provided employees BB for communication, and it's users loved BBM. ... That comment also missed the point: Slack didn't enter a new market (the claim from the referenced article), it entered a market that already was saturated, and by having a better product, is winning in that market. Hipchat, Campfire, Lync, et al, are all competing for the same customers that Slack competes for. Whether slack is better for businesses, or whether it was a direct competitor to BBM, completely misses the point.
  - anonbanker 10y ago
    Most Canadian companies, as well as most of the US government before 2005, used BBM the way most people use slack today. it was the killer app of enterprise. What were you using in 2005 to communicate internally in your company?
echaozh 10y ago
But, the Chinese companies have always used all kinds of IMs with group chat facilities to communicate. Many companies even developed their own IMs since as early as the 2000's.

by ig1 10y ago

balls187 10y ago

> You need to think about it in a business context. Pre-slack virtually no businesses used realtime group chat. Um, BBM?

elliotec 10y ago
Are you seriously comparing Black Berry Messenger to Slack? I had to Google BBM, and laughed when I saw that because people in businesses did not use Black Berry, or BBM, in any capacity even close to Slack. I agree with most points on your original post though.
- balls187 10y ago
  Straw man. I wasn't comparing slack's feature set to BBM, just refuting the point that before Slack, barely any businesses used group messaging. > Pre-slack virtually no businesses used realtime group chat. BBM, Real time group messaging, used by businesses. It was popular long before group messaging was popular. Yes blackberry is now a joke, but there was a time when many businesses provided employees BB for communication, and it's users loved BBM. ... That comment also missed the point: Slack didn't enter a new market (the claim from the referenced article), it entered a market that already was saturated, and by having a better product, is winning in that market. Hipchat, Campfire, Lync, et al, are all competing for the same customers that Slack competes for. Whether slack is better for businesses, or whether it was a direct competitor to BBM, completely misses the point.
- anonbanker 10y ago
  Most Canadian companies, as well as most of the US government before 2005, used BBM the way most people use slack today. it was the killer app of enterprise. What were you using in 2005 to communicate internally in your company?

echaozh 10y ago

But, the Chinese companies have always used all kinds of IMs with group chat facilities to communicate. Many companies even developed their own IMs since as early as the 2000's.