4 ms·

I don't think chicken and egg necessarily applies here. It's not a general consumer app in the sense that it's more likely to be adopted by teams. If I manage a

I don't think chicken and egg necessarily applies here. It's not a general consumer app in the sense that it's more likely to be adopted by teams. If I manage a small 10 person remote dev team, I may just tell my employees to all get on it and use it.

biot 14y ago
That's a valid point for a small team. There's not a lot of friction for them to add an additional chat tool on top of what they already use. I'm guessing that most people's Skype contact list is like mind: various present and former coworkers, family, friends, and so on. These additional contacts beyond the small team are what makes it hard to replace Skype. Everyone's already using a perfectly functional chat tool, so it comes down to whether push-to-chat is that compelling of a feature that you'd pay for it. Also in terms of a general consumer app vs. a team-based app, perhaps the terminology can reflect this? Instead of a contact being a "buddy" (which doesn't sound professional) what about just calling them "Contacts" and the ones you want to be able to insta-chat with you can be marked as Trusted?
jmharvey 14y ago
Exactly, the use pattern we've been seeing is teams adopting it all at once. With respect to biot's comment, a lot of teams have found effective ways to work remotely, but a lot of teams are still looking for more fluid communication channels. QuicklyChat isn't going to appeal to everyone, especially not at first, but it definitely seems like we've struck a chord with a fair number of people.
- biot 14y ago
  Fair enough. It actually reminds me of this push-to-talk cell networks that I first saw advertised 15 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_(cellular_network) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_(cellular_network) That technology definitely struck a chord with a niche audience. I think the product's name of MiKE was chosen to appeal to male-dominated industries such as construction where it essentially functioned as a walkie talkie with unlimited range.

biot 14y ago

That's a valid point for a small team. There's not a lot of friction for them to add an additional chat tool on top of what they already use. I'm guessing that most people's Skype contact list is like mind: various present and former coworkers, family, friends, and so on. These additional contacts beyond the small team are what makes it hard to replace Skype. Everyone's already using a perfectly functional chat tool, so it comes down to whether push-to-chat is that compelling of a feature that you'd pay for it. Also in terms of a general consumer app vs. a team-based app, perhaps the terminology can reflect this? Instead of a contact being a "buddy" (which doesn't sound professional) what about just calling them "Contacts" and the ones you want to be able to insta-chat with you can be marked as Trusted?

jmharvey 14y ago

Exactly, the use pattern we've been seeing is teams adopting it all at once. With respect to biot's comment, a lot of teams have found effective ways to work remotely, but a lot of teams are still looking for more fluid communication channels. QuicklyChat isn't going to appeal to everyone, especially not at first, but it definitely seems like we've struck a chord with a fair number of people.

biot 14y ago
Fair enough. It actually reminds me of this push-to-talk cell networks that I first saw advertised 15 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_(cellular_network) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_(cellular_network) That technology definitely struck a chord with a niche audience. I think the product's name of MiKE was chosen to appeal to male-dominated industries such as construction where it essentially functioned as a walkie talkie with unlimited range.