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I've found that casual chatrooms with a small group of friends is pretty effective at keeping in touch without the noise. There are many common options like Sl

I've found that casual chatrooms with a small group of friends is pretty effective at keeping in touch without the noise. There are many common options like Slack, IRC, Keybase, and others. The hardest choice is finding a technology folks can agree upon; convenience and inertia go a long way towards maintaining a successful chatroom.

Fezzik 8y ago
That was one great thing about gchat when I was in grad school - everyone had gmail, so chatting was easy. I had a number of groups that I would chat with almost daily, even after graduating. That petered out over the years and, of course, once I departed from gmail stopped completely. The ubiquity was nice while it lasted though. I wish there was a client that was as universal that was not so invasive with unrelated personal information.
- mxuribe 8y ago
  You should look to the matrix protocol. That will be your new friend. Now, the most popular - though of course NOT only - client is https://riot.im https://riot.im Its similar in concept to IRC - chat rooms and such, and its decentralized. The web and mobile client for riot are really awesome...but you mentioned about personal information, hey, the matrix folks actually have a server you can self-host...so there is really no personal info you need to share with anyone that you don't want. My small family and i use matrix (via riot.im), and it works well for us. I encourage you to give it a try. (Oh I didn't even mention the bridges to other platforms like gitter, irc, slack, etc. that matrix contributors develop...I honestly don't know why matrix has not crushed every other chat platform yet.) EDIT: To clarify, matrix-based platforms like riot.im are chat platforms not really what most might call "traditional social media/networks".
- marssaxman 8y ago
  I never even used gmail, but I have fond memories of google chat! It used to be my best way of keeping in touch with people. Not sure why people stopped using it; I imagine that maybe Google changed something about the gmail UI, or maybe it was because people started using phones instead of computers for email. In any case, it had all faded away naturally long before Google stopped supporting XMPP.
clusmore 8y ago
Why can't email do this? Serious question, I've never understood why people refuse to use email for chat. Everybody has email, we don't need to convince people to adopt it or agree on a provider. It should be perfect, and yet for some reason we don't use it for this. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?
- bradbatt 8y ago
  Because so many other things come into email – marketing emails, notifications, work-related emails, etc. that people don't check it as often. Texting and other chat applications are instant. Email used to be a more instantaneous thing, but it has evolved into something that many people want to take a break from, so sending an email might mean that the recipient doesn't see it for hours or days.
  - clusmore 8y ago
    This isn't a fault of email but the way we use it. I think what you're really saying is that we like to keep personal chat separate from impersonal spam, and I agree with this 100%. Couldn't we do this by keeping two separate email accounts? I just feel like we have spent thousands of man-years trying to come up with the one chat application to rule them all that everybody will adopt, that has no privacy concerns, that doesn't rely on a single service provider, meanwhile email is right under our noses.
  - tonyarkles 8y ago
    Texting and chat applications being instant is a downside sometimes, in that people have questions that they want an answer to, but won’t send an email because of the reasons you listed. Instead they send you an instant message, and the expectation is generally an instant response. I’m trying really hard to get people to use email again for questions that they need answered but not immediately. But I seem to be losing that battle.
    - stjohnswarts 8y ago
      This is why I treat IM at work the same as email. I show up as unavailable and check a few times a day. If someone really needs me instantly they can come to my cube.
yeahsure 8y ago
In my country most people have Whatsapp group chats with their friends. Usually more than one group for your different social circles. In my opinion it doesnt work that great. I find that most groups have people with too much time on their hands so when I end up having 100+ messages on the group and I just give up trying to catch up.
mercer 8y ago
This what WhatsApp and Telegram do around here. Even just in my direct family we have three different groups: everyone, siblings, and a subset of the siblings. Works quite well.
jasikpark 8y ago
Don’t forget Discord! I finally got my entire family in a server on there.

Fezzik 8y ago

That was one great thing about gchat when I was in grad school - everyone had gmail, so chatting was easy. I had a number of groups that I would chat with almost daily, even after graduating. That petered out over the years and, of course, once I departed from gmail stopped completely. The ubiquity was nice while it lasted though. I wish there was a client that was as universal that was not so invasive with unrelated personal information.

mxuribe 8y ago
You should look to the matrix protocol. That will be your new friend. Now, the most popular - though of course NOT only - client is https://riot.im https://riot.im Its similar in concept to IRC - chat rooms and such, and its decentralized. The web and mobile client for riot are really awesome...but you mentioned about personal information, hey, the matrix folks actually have a server you can self-host...so there is really no personal info you need to share with anyone that you don't want. My small family and i use matrix (via riot.im), and it works well for us. I encourage you to give it a try. (Oh I didn't even mention the bridges to other platforms like gitter, irc, slack, etc. that matrix contributors develop...I honestly don't know why matrix has not crushed every other chat platform yet.) EDIT: To clarify, matrix-based platforms like riot.im are chat platforms not really what most might call "traditional social media/networks".
marssaxman 8y ago
I never even used gmail, but I have fond memories of google chat! It used to be my best way of keeping in touch with people. Not sure why people stopped using it; I imagine that maybe Google changed something about the gmail UI, or maybe it was because people started using phones instead of computers for email. In any case, it had all faded away naturally long before Google stopped supporting XMPP.

clusmore 8y ago

Why can't email do this? Serious question, I've never understood why people refuse to use email for chat. Everybody has email, we don't need to convince people to adopt it or agree on a provider. It should be perfect, and yet for some reason we don't use it for this. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?

bradbatt 8y ago
Because so many other things come into email – marketing emails, notifications, work-related emails, etc. that people don't check it as often. Texting and other chat applications are instant. Email used to be a more instantaneous thing, but it has evolved into something that many people want to take a break from, so sending an email might mean that the recipient doesn't see it for hours or days.
- clusmore 8y ago
  This isn't a fault of email but the way we use it. I think what you're really saying is that we like to keep personal chat separate from impersonal spam, and I agree with this 100%. Couldn't we do this by keeping two separate email accounts? I just feel like we have spent thousands of man-years trying to come up with the one chat application to rule them all that everybody will adopt, that has no privacy concerns, that doesn't rely on a single service provider, meanwhile email is right under our noses.
- tonyarkles 8y ago
  Texting and chat applications being instant is a downside sometimes, in that people have questions that they want an answer to, but won’t send an email because of the reasons you listed. Instead they send you an instant message, and the expectation is generally an instant response. I’m trying really hard to get people to use email again for questions that they need answered but not immediately. But I seem to be losing that battle.
  - stjohnswarts 8y ago
    This is why I treat IM at work the same as email. I show up as unavailable and check a few times a day. If someone really needs me instantly they can come to my cube.

yeahsure 8y ago

In my country most people have Whatsapp group chats with their friends. Usually more than one group for your different social circles. In my opinion it doesnt work that great. I find that most groups have people with too much time on their hands so when I end up having 100+ messages on the group and I just give up trying to catch up.

mercer 8y ago

This what WhatsApp and Telegram do around here. Even just in my direct family we have three different groups: everyone, siblings, and a subset of the siblings. Works quite well.

jasikpark 8y ago

Don’t forget Discord! I finally got my entire family in a server on there.