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Grove.io: Hosted, Searchable IRC Chat For Teams
- dstrom 15y agogreat idea
- gooddelta 15y agoJust saw a demo of this; it blew me away with a clean UI, and some awesome features -- the search/ACL implementations are REALLY slick. It also gets rid of another problem I have, which is that I hate installing/configuring IRC servers. Every company I've ever worked for has needed this.
- kenneth_reitz 15y agoI've been using this lightly for about a month now and it's a fantastic service. I hope it's wildly successful.
- robot 15y agowould be great to integrate with github
- jorde 15y agoYou should be able to use Hubot with Grove as it provides IRC interface. We have few users already using it.
- injekt 15y agoAssuming you'll have to create an entirely new Grove account for each bot you want to add, though?
- arbales 15y agoThat's fairly typical though.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- Xylakant 15y agoHubot does provide the irc-interface but then github itself doesn't provide a hubot hook. So you're pretty much stuck at the same place. Github itself does provide an IRC hook but that does not work since it can't authenticate with nickserv, it only allows for server and room passwords.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- flexterra 15y agoLove the idea.
- joelhaasnoot 15y agoLooks great, now time to convince my cofounders we need it...
- uniclaude 15y agoLooks great, I'd love to try it, but I had an error 500 while attempting to register. Being an IRC fan, I believe a service like this will really help me to convince my workmates to talk over something else than Google Talk or Skype.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- shintoist 15y agoJust keep trying, I got 500s a couple of times too.
- leahculver 15y agoSorry, our server is swamped right now. I'm working on it... Update: I've made a few tweaks and it should be better now. fingers crossed
- uniclaude 15y agoWorks fine now! Thanks.
- samstave 15y agoThis would be cool if it included what I think is the most useful aspect of IRC for teams: trainable IRC bots. Back in 1999 - I used IRC to manage my IT org. We had two IT channels: one for IT staff, which we were all required to be logged into when on the clock - and another that was company wide, where users could jump on IRC to ask the IT/dev/support teams questions. We used bots to train IT FAQ and system info... So for example, we would type "DNS Server" and the bot would reply with the IP of the DNS server. We could type in a hostname and the bot would reply with the system details we put in there. So, i this had the capability of learning and storing data that was retrievable in this way, rather than simple search, I think it could be very useful. User:"Whats the current version of ProductX" Bot:"Product X current version is 1.1.2"
- xpaulbettsx 15y agoHubot has this feature, and it also has an IRC adapter.
- gojomo 15y agoWill its model work well with an open source/community project – where you want to allow all walk-up participants, but need some moderator powers? For example, can you edit the searchable logs to remove spam?
- leahculver 15y agoI can actually think of a few good reasons why you might want to remove messages as a moderator. We'll add this soon.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- TheSmoke 15y agowhat happened to convore?
- maximusprime 15y agoI don't think people wanted to use it.
- pwang 15y agoI dunno, I was pretty happy with it. It was really nice to have at conferences. Like any social medium, there's a tough chicken-and-egg nut to crack. I'm going to try to use it at Supercomputing next week.
- untog 15y agoI'd be interested to know how this stacks up against HipChat. I'm not sure what I'm missing out on, but it would be good to hear if there is something.
- mikezupan 15y agothat i can use any irc client i want and not install adobe air or use their web-based chat
- metajack 15y agoYou can use XMPP clients with HipChat.
- fourk 15y agoThe major advantage I see with this over HipChat is that you can use existing IRC client software to connect. Personally, I'd much prefer Irssi in a terminal to an Adobe AIR product.
- untog 15y agoI can see the reasons for that, but the HipChat application lets you drag and drop files to share them with everyone in a room, auto-loads images... that alone is worth the client app to me.
- jacobolus 15y agoYou can connect to HipChat from any Jabber client, though unfortunately it makes chat rooms slightly less discoverable. (I’ve used Adium with reasonable success.) The big advantage is that (at least on a Mac) the Adobe AIR version is a tremendous CPU hog.
- jamesu 15y agoI was thinking something like this would come in handy the other day. Goes to show if you have an idea, chances are someone else is already thinking about it.
- jhsu 15y agothis is awesome, mixing a bit of irc + campfire. really like the ability for users to pick web interface or their own irc client.
- akavlie 15y agoHmm, I just started working on an open source web-based IRC client a couple of weeks ago. This takes a bit of the wind out of my sails.
- Technicolour 15y agoSomething that works with existing irc servers would still be fantastic.
- akavlie 15y agoYeah, the cient looks pretty fantastic, but the apparent limitation of working with Grove-hosted servers does limit its usefulness. If you're interested, here's my client so far: http://web-irc.nodester.com/ http://web-irc.nodester.com/ https://github.com/akavlie/web-irc https://github.com/akavlie/web-irc
- clintecker 15y agohttp://usealice.org http://usealice.org works really well.
- castewart 15y agoDon't let it get you too discouraged- Leah doesn't last very long with any one project so you'll be fine in a few months.
- swombat 15y agoEven if this is true (I have no idea whether it is), making this comment here and at this time is in extremely poor form. You should be ashamed of your utter lack of simple etiquette.
- davidandgoliath 15y agoHe's at -9 karma, I imagine he doesn't care.
- 15y ago
- perlgeek 15y agoNot quite as shiny, but I've hosted IRC logs for a few years now. Example: http://irclog.perlgeek.de/perl6/today http://irclog.perlgeek.de/perl6/today If anybody wants a channel on freenode logged publicly, feel free to contact me. (The search facility currently sucks, I'm working on a very different search backend these days).
- mml 15y agoi was wishing that this existed a few weeks ago. win. now i don't have to implement it.
- derpapst 15y agoCool idea. However, I am missing the method to auto-group chats by topic. Would be nice to have it with IRC. Currently, I am doing that (not with IRC, but with Jabber/XMPP) via my side-project http://TwoToReal.com http://TwoToReal.com (beta): You ask questions (or raise topics) for which automatically determined experts are then pulled in via IM into a real-time web chat (most of the knobs/switches are tuned by machine learning). What are your pricing plans?
- dabeeeenster 15y agoIs it going to remain free? Would consider moving our internal irc server here but am concerned that in a few months it will become pay only?
- maximusprime 15y ago"We are offering a free trial on all organizations during our beta testing period...... If you sign up for an organization we may contact you to gather feedback - both to improve Grove and help us determine our pricing." I'd say that means it'll likely be a paid for service. Maybe with a small free option.
- leahculver 15y agoNo, it won't remain free forever. Soon we'll having pricing plans that are comparable to existing team chat products.
- erikb 15y agoMaybe it's just in my circles like this, but I think these days chat itself is no service anymore. You need to integrate it into something else, like social networks, gtalk, skype (chat+telephone), "webcam-services". 10 years ago Grove might've been awesome, but now it feels like something is missing, because I can chat everywhere else contextrelated anyway. Look how meebo developed over the last years. First it integrated web and traditional chat media like ICQ, MSN and then they already moved on to integrate their chat services into other peoples web-businessmodels as a b2b service.
- maximusprime 15y agoMeebo also took $ SEVENTY million in funding. When you take that sort of investment, the rules of the game change a lot I think. It's no longer sufficient to make a few million profit a month.
- erikb 15y agoYou are right, there is a possible niche that is probably profitable. Thus the businessmodel might be valid, even if they have no chance of hitting any main stream markets (with the businessmodel they have right now).
- state_machine 15y ago> chat itself is no service anymore And yet lots of shops pay 37signals for Campfire
- derpapst 15y agoNot sure whether it is in your vision as well, but wouldn't it be cool if Grove.io offered a library of such IRC agents in the same manner as HuBot from GitHub?
- leahculver 15y agoI think this is a super cool idea and it's something I've been thinking a lot about. Right now, existing IRC bots work fine with Grove but it would be cooler to have more integration.
- derpapst 15y agoCould even open a market of such bots for you: Customers of Grove.io could then offer their bots in your IRC bot market place ... but now I'm just dreaming ;-)
- tlrobinson 15y agoNeat. Easy hosted custom plugins/bots would be awesome. You can run your own IRC bot, of course, but then you have to worry about finding a server to run it on, keep it running, etc.
- leahculver 15y agoAgreed. We need to figure out a good way to do better bot integration! (suggestions welcome)
- yatendra 15y agoI would suggest something like Twilio where you host your own xml at a specified url that twilio calls when it receives a call/sms for you. Similarly grove api consumers can specify a url that can be called by grove when a message is received in a channel and api consumers can respond ina predefined json.
- tlrobinson 15y agoI'd probably start with a configurable bot with a few predefined plugins (RSS feeds, version control / bug tracker integration, etc) and a configuration UI (similar to Github's Services hooks) Eventually you could add a way to define custom plugins that are properly sandboxed.
- Xylakant 15y agoYou're describing http://hubot.github.com/ http://hubot.github.com/ which ist pretty much a configurable bot with a few scripts and an irc adapter. It doesn't have a configuration page though.
- strick 15y agoGrove looks very cool. But groupme is free and has a good iphone/android client that a non-technical user can setup and use. Push notifications work great. But Grove intrigues me for the ability to hook up useful bots to IRC. If Groupme had an API available now, I'm not sure Grove would offer any benefits for my purposes. But I love how this space is exploding with all sorts of cool services.
- EricButler 15y agoI've been beta testing irccloud.com. It's very well done, but I'd also like something that can be self-hosted to access internal-only IRC servers.
- sofuture 15y agoI like irccloud.com quite a lot. A bit different of a product, but still very nice.
- razzaj 15y agoBut aren't the hassles one of the aspects us "geeks" like about IRC? I think us "geeks" deep inside love the terminal, having to setup an IRC client on a hosted server and tweaking the settings, getting our hands dirty. Us, "geeks", love also the sense of exclusivity that the barrier to entry to IRC provides. Take that, and the hassles, away and it becomes yet another chat network.
- jaequery 15y agothink you have a valid point there.
- arbales 15y agoThe Do team has been using Grove for a while now, and we're really liking it. The web app supports embedded content and gravatars, and connecting via IRC is great for those who love it. We used Convore in the past, and Grove has definitely encapsulated the best parts of Convore along with laser-focused features and great performance. We actually can't wait to be a (or the first?) paying customer.
- cpr 15y agoNice work, Leah! Love the fact that it's just IRC at heart. Is there any way to integrate a file-uploading facility (drag'n'drop in the web client, ideally, like Campfire) to the IRC concept, or is that an impedance mismatch?
- leahculver 15y agoThanks!! I'd love to add some file uploading and/or hosting capability. I think it would be easy enough on the website side of things but I'm not sure yet what it would mean for existing IRC clients.
- bri3d 15y agoWhat's the advantage of an IRC-backed chat vs. a Jabber-backed chat? Sure, IRC's protocol is simpler, but it's also not designed to support authentication or security natively, or to be federated in a "cross-network" way like XMPP is. It seems that XMPP is more modern, more flexible, and supports real user authentication natively - a win in every respect. Plus most of the clients people these days use for IRC (Adium, irssi, Pidgin, XChat) support Jabber anyway.
- piotrSikora 15y agoIt's not? How about: * passwords required to connect to the IRC server, * passwords required to use given nickname (enforced via NickServ), * SSL.
- bri3d 15y agoNickServ and "IRC services" in general are shoehorned extensions to IRC. Most clients support them in some automated fashion now, but there's no guarantee, and usage differs depending on "IRC services" package. At any rate, my original comment came off a bit the wrong way. I'm not trying to say that IRC isn't a workable solution for this kind of group chat system, as it clearly is. I just don't see why using IRC over Jabber (which seems more technically suited to this domain) is a selling point, especially in a marketplace crowded with group chat solutions.
- leahculver 15y agoI think it's actually an issue of perception. When I hear Jabber or XMPP, I think of one-to-one chat and when I hear IRC I definitely think of group chat. In general, IRC clients seem more tailored towards groups. That said, there's definitely room for both protocols and I could see supporting XMPP as well at some point.
- tilgovi 15y agoXMPP MUC is not fun, nor fun to scale. IRC has netsplits, but it does work reliably for tons of people all day every day.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- un1xl0ser 15y agoNice work, thanks for making pretty things, keep it up. Disclaimer: I've been brainwashed by working in "enterprise" environments. I understand that is not necessarily your target audience. Logging scares me when it is a hosted solution like this. I signed up for the trial (for personal use) and didn't see that configuration option. Maildrops are lots of fun, but dumps of your dev IRC chats? Most regulated environments have retention periods, and after that most communication is considered to be a liability and storage concern (IANL, TINLA). I would say that dev chats are useful for about a few months, max. A non-hosted solution would be nice, but certainly takes a huge amount of effort to layer on something like that to what you already have. Is there any open community (i.e. a grove.io instance) to join and chat about your product, get a feel for it? Sounds like a bit of maintenance headache, but probably worth it. I can't really demo it well by myself. Also, I can't imagine talking to my coworkers like I am accustomed to chatting on IRC <ahem>. That's just a random thought. Edit: spelling errours
- peterwwillis 15y agoI know it's brand new and all, but there seems to be a lack of "normal" irc functionality/usability. Nickserv has no 'help' functionality, nicks apparently have to be universally unique across all of Grove (better hope someone doesn't use my name in a different organization?), there's no chanserv. The help page is concise but should probably be printed in MOTD or some other way for non-Web clients (I was confused that I had to identify before joining a channel... it created a 'ghost' channel for me instead of booting me and telling me to identify, like most irc servers). And when you add a member to the org, they immediately are joined to the channel - even if they're not connected to a client? How do you know they're available to respond to a question? Also, since it appears to be a new & custom irc server, i'd not really be willing to trust corporate communication on a platform known for attracting hackers.
- ricardobeat 15y agoI don't think it is supposed to "be IRC". It's a chatroom backed by IRC, and it seems to work perfectly.
- peterwwillis 15y agoIf it's not supposed to "be IRC" perhaps they shouldn't include the word IRC 12 times in the article, their website shouldn't have an "IRC Help" page and instructions to "set up your IRC client" and your "IRC settings", the front page shouldn't say "Hosted IRC" in huge bold letters and a "Sign up for your IRC server" link at the bottom. Might make people think it was IRC. But that's just my opinion.
- ricardobeat 15y ago"be IRC" == be a standard/traditional IRC server. Why would anyone launch that? I think you are missing the point.
- leahculver 15y agoYou're correct - it's a totally new and custom IRC server (for good and bad). We built it as a minimum viable product are continually adding features - both standard IRC features and custom features for our customers. Thanks for reporting these specific issues. We'll work on getting them fixed.
- bryogenic 15y agoNo /me implemented. :(
- idle_processor 15y ago>Geeks love IRC, but it comes with a few hassles, mainly having to host it, that have led teams away from using it in favor of easier IM solutions. The nature of IRC's channel-level organization¹ obviates the need to set up independent servers for a given team group. What advantage does something like this offer me over just opening a new channel on freenode? ¹I.e., access lists (ops, voice) and modes like +psk (p[rivate], s[ecret], and k[eyed]).
- gwillen 15y agoTechnically Freenode doesn't allow the creation of random channels for any purpose; they are required to be for some open project or open source software. (I say this as a member of quite a number of random channels on Freenode; but they could technically crack down at any time, and I would not recommend this approach for corporate use.)
- antoncohen 15y agoAwesome, this service is needed. I had the job of finding/implementing an outside-accessible group chat service for a startup. I wanted Campfire, but one of the founders didn't like newfangled web chat and required it be traditional IRC. Setting up open source IRC servers is a pain. They are almost completely void of documentation. And as the article points out, IRC doesn't usually have the traditional username/passwords or access controls you really need for business group chat. I realize this is an MVP. Here are somethings I think should be included: * Groups. It makes it way easier to manage access controls. * A way to invite outsiders. The specific use case is inviting customers to join a chat, without the customer taking up a user/license seat. * You've probably done these but I can't tell from the website; persistent chat rooms and varying admin privileges (ops in some rooms, not others, ability to create rooms, etc.). EDIT: Why was my comment down voted?
- kaichanvong 15y agoA website exists which is already here to pwn this space. Facebook.
- robinduckett 15y agoAnd I already crashed my instance. Can no longer connect via IRC, only web client. Connected Hubot to it and did a help with all the scripts installed. Flooding ensued. Now it doesn't work.
- Xylakant 15y agoNow if it only were possible to get the github commit hooks working with this... Coding time I guess.
- pferde 15y agoToo bad silcnet.org is dead. It would probably be a better base for such chat application than irc.
- LEAHCULVER4 15y agoPLEASE JOIN IRC.GROVE.BZ #GROVE FOR SUPPORT WITH THE GROVE IRC SERVICE AND TO MEET THE TEAM!!! THANK YOU!!!
- grover 15y agoI've been using grove IRC for a while now. If you use the irc.grove.bz server instead of the .io server, you can create channels without registration.
- 3th3r 15y agooh wow this is amazing!! thanks!!
- grover 15y agoI connected to irc.grove.bz #grove and I got flooded off.
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- grover 15y ago