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So would it be correct to summarize zulip as real-time email?

by fny 8y ago

jremmons 8y ago
Zulip is closer to being "real-time email" than Slack is, but I wouldn't call it real-time email.
krispbyte 8y ago
Google Wave was the real-time email, remember that? me neither. I wonder what would have happened if they used the tech to build a chat application instead of an email-killer.
- dboreham 8y ago
  They used the tech to build Google Docs.
- fosco 8y ago
  I loved google wave -- it was great and ahead of its time. I think it was a major mistake that google let it go and that the apache wave foundation never got it going. it is too late now but really a greatly missed opportunity.
  - infinite8s 8y ago
    It was definitely ahead of its time. It would be interesting to do a reboot with much better chatbot technology (driven by all the advances in NLP).
- nine_k 8y ago
  (1) It wasn't. (2) It tried to be an all-in-one comm platform, and because of that it excelled in none of what it tried to do. (3) Poor UI performance was the death sentence of it. If you can't use it fluently, it's not good for real-time. Poor UI design did not help, on top of that. It was an interesting experiment, but not all experiments end up with a successful product. I hope the ideas will be unearthed at some moment and reused with a greater effect.
BerislavLopac 8y ago
Real-time email is a contradiction in terms, as (at least for me) being asynchronous is one of the main defining features of email. Essentially any chat app, from IRC to Slack, can be called "real-time" email. To me, the phrase "real-time email" sounds like calling a submarine an "underwater car".
- nine_k 8y ago
  IMs hit the sweet spot between fully real-time (like the phone) and fully async (like paper mail). The UI is built for efficient real-time communication, but the underlying data model (the log, notifications, statuses, etc) allows for very easy async communication. I think someone could make a great product by just adding IM-like UI features on top of an existing email backend. Email is pretty fast these days to work as mostly-instant communication.
  - taohansen 8y ago
    I agree! Check out https://delta.chat https://delta.chat. I use it every day for emailing. Subject lines are the ellipsized first words of your body and every message is a new email.

So would it be correct to summarize zulip as real-time email?

by fny 8y ago

So would it be correct to summarize zulip as real-time email?

jremmons 8y ago

Zulip is closer to being "real-time email" than Slack is, but I wouldn't call it real-time email.

krispbyte 8y ago

Google Wave was the real-time email, remember that? me neither. I wonder what would have happened if they used the tech to build a chat application instead of an email-killer.

dboreham 8y ago
They used the tech to build Google Docs.
fosco 8y ago
I loved google wave -- it was great and ahead of its time. I think it was a major mistake that google let it go and that the apache wave foundation never got it going. it is too late now but really a greatly missed opportunity.
- infinite8s 8y ago
  It was definitely ahead of its time. It would be interesting to do a reboot with much better chatbot technology (driven by all the advances in NLP).
nine_k 8y ago
(1) It wasn't. (2) It tried to be an all-in-one comm platform, and because of that it excelled in none of what it tried to do. (3) Poor UI performance was the death sentence of it. If you can't use it fluently, it's not good for real-time. Poor UI design did not help, on top of that. It was an interesting experiment, but not all experiments end up with a successful product. I hope the ideas will be unearthed at some moment and reused with a greater effect.

BerislavLopac 8y ago

Real-time email is a contradiction in terms, as (at least for me) being asynchronous is one of the main defining features of email. Essentially any chat app, from IRC to Slack, can be called "real-time" email. To me, the phrase "real-time email" sounds like calling a submarine an "underwater car".

nine_k 8y ago
IMs hit the sweet spot between fully real-time (like the phone) and fully async (like paper mail). The UI is built for efficient real-time communication, but the underlying data model (the log, notifications, statuses, etc) allows for very easy async communication. I think someone could make a great product by just adding IM-like UI features on top of an existing email backend. Email is pretty fast these days to work as mostly-instant communication.
- taohansen 8y ago
  I agree! Check out https://delta.chat https://delta.chat. I use it every day for emailing. Subject lines are the ellipsized first words of your body and every message is a new email.