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Envolve (YC S11) Launches An API For Real-Time Chat
- walrus 15y agoI think it should be more obvious that you can change your name without actually signing up for anything.
- mayop100 15y agoThe product itself is generally used with our API so login is automated by the site owner. On our own site we use it in its default mode where login can be done through FB or Twitter (or as a guest or our own account system)
- mayop100 15y agoHey HN - we've got some cool new developer tools now. We'd love some feedback if you guys want to give them a shot. Developers like you are our target audience.
- SebMortelmans 15y agoI think this is a great idea, so much potential, mainly in the community aspect.
- jamest 15y agoThanks Seb! If you have any feedback for us, please swing by the site or drop us an email!
- jamest 15y agoRegarding a scaling question in the chat going on here: http://envo.lv/http://news.ycombinator.com http://envo.lv/http://news.ycombinator.com Check out http://www.mindlessbehavior.com http://www.mindlessbehavior.com for an example of a large # of concurrents.
- brandnewlow 15y agoAnd here's envolve's cool HN implementation: http://envo.lv/http://news.ycombinator.com http://envo.lv/http://news.ycombinator.com
- staunch 15y agoI hope this one makes it to its full potential. A heck of a lot more sites should have chat embedded on them than currently do. HN is a perfect example. We should have a "Chat" link in the navigation bar where we can hang out. We should be automatically signed in with our existing usernames. A while ago I looked into doing this and were no good options. Mibbit was the closest but it's a bit ugly, doesn't have much of an API, and relies on IRC (which has pros and cons). Personally I hate the Meebo-style bar they've implemented, but the actual chat is good and you can embed it in a page and disable the bar entirely.
- mayop100 15y agoThanks for the feedback! It's interesting you associate the toolbar approach with Meebo, rather than Facebook.
- lobo_tuerto 15y agoIt's peculiar you find interesting he associates the toolbar approach with Meebo, rather than Facebook.
- madh 15y agoFor me, chat toolbars that can be placed on third-party sites make me think of Meebo as well. I don't think Facebook has a third-party embeddable toolbar (yet).
- dwynings 15y agoIt was announced over a year ago at f8, but nothing ever came of it.
- rokhayakebe 15y agoI remember having a holy shit moment when I tried Envolve. This is definitely one of those service you want to see succeed.
- mibbit 15y ago> Mibbit was the closest but it's a bit ugly sob :(
- muuh-gnu 15y agoMibbit has been offering such a service for years, but completely based on IRC under the hood.
- endlessvoid94 15y agoI'm using this on ThatHigh.com and it's awesome.
- mayop100 15y agoAnd sending tens of thousands of messages per day I might add...
- endlessvoid94 15y ago:-) My users LOVE it. The new level of engagement I'm seeing is leading me to put some more work into the site and grow it a bit more. Anyway, envolve is awesome.
- adam 15y agoAgreed - it's been great. As soon as we added it we couldn't believe the pent up conversations that began to take place. Now we're actually hiring some community managers in large part to manage and hang out in the chat rooms.
- bravura 15y agoThis appears to only support group chat. What about one on one chat, like facebook? So that you can have personal conversations with other users of the site?
- jazzychad 15y agoYou can. If you click on a username, there is a link to "Chat" which creates a one-on-one chat with them.
- rorrr 15y agoIdeas: 1) Allow pasting images 2) Make a simple gfx JS editor to let users make simple drawings, it's fun 3) Personal ban list + spam reporting 4) Flood control
- jamest 15y agoAwesome, thanks so much for the input. - Flood control is already baked in. 4 messages every 10 seconds is the limit. - Pasting images gets ugly (eg porn). We'll think of a good way to do this soon. - JS editor is a sweet idea! - Personal ban list / spam reporting are on their way. Thanks again.
- hristov 15y agoHere is a bit of 2000 bubble lore about a company that did the same thing. http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/my-name-is-james-a-and-im-an-alcoholic/ http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/my-name-is-james-a-and-... I am not saying this is relvant to anything, but it is just interesting. In any event good luck to Envolve. I am sure they will do much better than gooey, mostly because they do not require users to download or install anything.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- gojomo 15y agoEven earlier than Gooey was Ubique's Virtual Places. The no-plug-in, all HTML and JS qualities of the current breed of tools – plus many more users familiar with the basic idea (from Facebook and elsewhere) – make it a much better idea now.
- pacemkr 15y ago"the site later allowed websites to merge the toolbar with their own user account systems — which has fared better. " Exactly. And this puts them in an entirely different category from Meboo, etc. Anybody who ever ran a forum and has tried putting a real time chat on it will know this. TC got this slightly wrong; the only real competition out there is RealChat. There are simply no other solid solutions out there. I do this search every year and come up empty handed. As for RealChat, it is too expensive.
- jswinghammer 15y agoI think the only piece that's missing for me is a way to bring chat logs into my application so people can review them later. My usage will be for users to answer questions so the content will be highly relevant to users who come along when a chat isn't active.
- docgnome 15y agoCan someone explain to me why people keep referring to "Real-Time" chat? I've seen it multiple times and don't understand why... How is this in anyway different from just... chat. Is this some sort of buzzword bingo?
- losethos 15y agoWhat part of God do you not understand? Maybe, I can help.
- watmough 15y agoThis is awesome. Kinda related, I've been thinking for ages about whether one could now do encrypted chat between users in the browser, with the encryption happening at either end and the server never seeing plain-text. Back in the real World, is there a mechanism to do a quick 'email to invite user to chat to me'? That would seem like a pretty solid way to win eyeballs. My dad isn't on Yahoo, but he could click a link and run javascript.