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Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats
- nikivi 6y agoCurious how this can work for recording podcasts.
- hojjat12000 6y agoThat is the first thing that I thought about. I know a lot influencers (political and not) on telegram. They can host live radio shows (and record it and call it a podcast). It's great. I'm curious what the community comes up with these new features.
- CharlesW 6y agoI assume as well as any VoIP system, which (in my experience) is "meh", although the results can be very tolerable with a little knowledge, care, and post-processing. An ideal system would automate a "double ender"[1] setup, streaming low-bitrate voice for the conversation itself but also recording uncompressed/losslessly-compressed audio at both ends, then delivering high fidelity sync'd audio as one file per participant (for easier editing) to the podcaster. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone-sync https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone-sync
- pearjuice 6y agoThis is what I would expect. Though Clubhouse is a novel idea, it's relatively easy for a plethora of social networks to implement something similar and immediately have the network effect of their already immense userbase. On Instagram/Youtube/Facebook people can already go live with video. I think we will very quickly see similar audio-rooms on these platforms.
- kitkat_new 6y agoElement seems to implement it as well: https://matrix.org/open-tech-will-save-us/11 https://matrix.org/open-tech-will-save-us/11
- dangoor 6y agoe.g. [Twitter Spaces](https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/spaces https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/spaces) I already have access to Spaces and have been considering trying it. It's not clear to me that anyone would show up, though: they have to be using the mobile app, and I only have ~1800 followers. Maybe people will get used to it? The thing about something like Clubhouse is that the audio chat is _why_ people are there. I am curious to see how it plays out.
- behnamoh 6y agoIG (and then FB) stole the "stories" idea from SnapChat. I don't see why they wouldn't do the same with this feature.
- rvz 6y ago> On Instagram/Youtube/Facebook people can already go live with video. I think we will very quickly see similar audio-rooms on these platforms. Exactly what happened to Slack being killed by Microsoft Teams, Meerkat killed by both Periscope (Twitter), Instagram Live. Snapchat suffered the same thing with Instagram Stories; but although they survived, user growth slowed. We will see lots of audio-rooms on IG, Facebook, Twitter, etc and Clubhouse will join Meerkat as another victim of this VC hype machine, who ironically are hyping them on Twitter!
- uniformlyrandom 6y ago> Slack being killed by Microsoft Teams The rumors of Slack demise are greatly exaggerated. Mostly by Microsoft.
- barbazoo 6y agoMore and more I appreciate Signal for what it is. A no nonsense (okay, stickers) messaging tool for people that know each other in real life. I hope it never changes into something "social".
- eptcyka 6y agoYeah, but I can't get my family to switch if the UX is subpar.
- rPlayer6554 6y agoHow long ago did you use signal? The UX is on par with WhatsApp. In fact I've found tiny things that signal does better (it groups sending multiple pictures into on "album" message instead of sending one message per picture like WhatsApp) The only place I could agree WhatsApp has a significantly better UX is with backing up messages.
- StavrosK 6y agoWhatsApp does the album thing as well.
- rPlayer6554 6y agoHmmm interesting. It hasn't been doing it for me recently. Maybe it's a setting.
- dawnerd 6y agoTelegram also does “albums”
- rPlayer6554 6y agoYes but UI/UX around E2E is not good.
- fnord123 6y ago
- antihero 6y agoThis looks bloody neat - Clubhouse seemed annoying and exclusive, whereas Telegram feels a lot more inclusive.
- behnamoh 6y agoExactly. I don't like how CH was only introduced for iOS and follows the same annoying strategy that Gmail used before (invitation).
- malikNF 6y agoWe call it the Cartmanland[1] approach. Although I think CH is a really nice idea, that too much exclusive thing kept me away from getting an account there even if I have an invite to the platform. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartmanland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartmanland
- newscracker 6y agoWhat's even more annoying is that Clubhouse requires access to the entire contacts list/address book if you as a user would like to invite someone else. You can't invite someone by just entering their phone number (since a phone number is the only way to register for it). It doesn't have to be this way, but the Clubhouse team doesn't seem to care.
- rvz 6y agoClubhouse is yet to release an Android app whilst their main competitors are already there and copying them quickly to death. When the VC hype brigade knows that Clubhouse is losing steam, they will aggressively push for another company to acquire them or worse; they shut down. Might as well remove the invite system now to allow the rest of the small iOS userbase in, I guess.
- vezycash 6y agoRecorded chats Before opening the link, I thought it would be a replay of chats - simulated live chat. Instead of being overwhelmed with 100s of past chats, chats come in one at a time. (Speed up, pause, play)
- blue_box 6y agoI really like Telegram and these features but I don’t use it because they don’t have end2end encryption as default. Also you can’t create a secret group chat that you can start from your phone and continue from your Mac.
- darthrupert 6y agoI think it would make it slightly more difficult for them to profit from the chats.
- TheChaplain 6y agoJust out of curiosity, what kind of discussion do you have that require e2e? Myself I use TG extensively with friends, family, girlfriend and I think I've used secret chats once when the gf wanted to send a naughty photo. It's not that I don't have anything to hide, it's just I choose what to say according to the environment and I feel the features of telegram far outweigh the con of not having e2e at all times.
- randomhodler84 6y agoOh no. No. “You have nothing to share.” E2e by default or GTFO. This isn’t about your secrets. It’s about making your regular discourse indistinguishable from secrets. There is no con to e2e, and many cons for snake oil/plaintext.
- parhamn 6y ago> There is no con to e2e, and many cons for snake oil/plaintext. Is this true? From anecdata every e2e encrypted platform I used is much lower quality than the alternatives (iMessage, Signal, etc). Things like multi-device sync don’t work that well. Is this really just a coincidence? Telegram claims they can’t provide the same quality chat (and snappy cross platform crispness is really their competitive advantage) with e2e. Is this just a fake limitation?
- newscracker 6y ago
- kyriakos 6y agoTelegram has by far the best desktop experience from all messengers. Smallest memory footprint and snappy UI.
- whistlecow 6y agoIt would be of such niceness if telegram was fully end-2-end encryption.
- kitkat_new 6y agowhat about being federated?
- vetinari 6y agoThat's exactly what secret chats are.
- tridenrake 6y agoI am still waiting for the day when I can initiate a secret chat from my desktop client.
- kennydude 6y agoAt least on macOS you can
- BelenusMordred 6y agoGroup chats are not encrypted.
- vetinari 6y agoThey are encrypted, but not e2e. It is a key distribution problem. Threema solves it by scanning QR codes; for that, you need to physically meet with the other recipients, they need to bring their devices and scan each other QR codes (note that Threema still supports only one device per recipient; otherwise, the users would need to scan each other QR codes for each device). It is not something that an average Telegram user would be willing to do.
- mrccc 6y agoI‘m hoping that messaging apps will add a feature that allows you to transcribe voice messages after you received them. I find it rather annoying to listen to five minutes of audio when I could read a message in less than a minute.
- Nux 6y agoOr at least ffwd 2x 3x like YouTube does, this would be easier to implement.
- nethunters 6y agoYou can change the speed to 2x currently.
- SXX 6y agoIt's will take some effort to use, but actually someone made Telegram bot to do exactly this: @transcriber_bot It's open source, but works through Yandex Translation API: https://github.com/charslab/TranscriberBot https://github.com/charslab/TranscriberBot
- antirez 6y agoThere is also thr voicy bot.
- beigeoak 6y agoDoes anyone know any details about the engineering and design teams at Telegram? Encryption qualms aside, the UX and performance of Telegram is so far ahead of WhatsApp, Facebook and Signal that it's quite mindboggling. Is there any reason why a behemoth like Facebook is unable to achieve similar levels of polish? Is it a cultural issue, bureaucracy or a fundamental difference in the attitudes of developers in Eastern Europe vs those in the United States?
- cordite 6y agoLooks like they are prioritizing a path towards being a social influencer platform. To displace Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, does facebook even count anymore?
- 88840-8855 6y agoI know nobody who is still using facebook. I wonder that it still exists.
- throwawaysea 6y agoDoes Telegram perform any censorship or deplatforming like Twitter when it comes to controversial topics (like illegal immigration, trans issues, race issues, etc)? I see from this post they have public groups but I also worry that these tech companies are all too willing to deplatform those that disagree with the progressive political platform, especially when they try to make the turn towards monetization. That’s really my deciding factor for adopting something new, as I don’t wish to give any power to those who are against free speech principles. It seems like Telegram has had their own pressures from the anti-speech/anti-freedom crowd so maybe they’re on the other side of this? Apple sued for not banning Telegram https://reclaimthenet.org/apple-sued-by-pressure-group-for-not-banning-telegram/ https://reclaimthenet.org/apple-sued-by-pressure-group-for-n... Google sued for not banning Telegram https://reclaimthenet.org/now-its-googles-turn-to-be-sued-for-not-banning-telegram/ https://reclaimthenet.org/now-its-googles-turn-to-be-sued-fo... Telegram CEO says reject being “held hostage by tech monopolies” https://reclaimthenet.org/telegram-adds-25m-users/ https://reclaimthenet.org/telegram-adds-25m-users/
- newscracker 6y agoTelegram can and will remove content and users who violate its policies. Since the content is not end to end encrypted by default (except in one to one secret chats), Telegram has access to scan/listen/process the content. There is also a content moderation team that works on handling content removal, though it seems like it has mostly focused on terrorism in the past. The FAQ [1] has more details. So does the ToS. [2] [1]: https://telegram.org/faq https://telegram.org/faq [2]: https://telegram.org/tos https://telegram.org/tos
- sdfhbdf 6y agoTelegram still missing message reactions. Kind of surprising at this point with the speed at which they pump out features.
- aiven 6y agoThis is the kind of feature that can burn servers :) Especially at telegram scale
- rPlayer6554 6y agoIt's interesting to me that of all companies, Facebook has not added reactions to WhatsApp, but Signal has them. I would have thought the roles to be reversed.
- newscracker 6y agoThe feature set sounds like competing with Clubhouse in a sense while providing a lot more, but discoverability is quite low and the UX is not great. Telegram has started putting more features behind the scenes in the last year or so – one could start a secret chat from the chats list before, but now it's hidden in the person's profile under a "..." submenu. This voice chats 2.0 feature is also implemented in the same way on groups and channels. It could've been in the menu that comes up with the audio/video recording button or in the attachment menu for quicker access.
- posedge 6y agoWith each of those blog posts I'm fascinated by the pace at which they release new features.
- Scene_Cast2 6y agoI'd love to fully switch to Telegram - it's snappy and has a nice UI. However, video calls are low quality at the moment, and that's the one thing holding me back.
- afiori 6y agoalso no group video calls, a bummer for keeping in touch with family
- katsura 6y agoI've been using Telegram for a few years now, but I wish they allowed you to use it without phone number.
- qecez 6y agoAt least you can hide it.