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Show HN: Hosted IRC for Teams (my first startup)
- StavrosK 14y agoHey, this looks like it would go well with what I'm currently developing: http://www.getinstabot.com/ http://www.getinstabot.com/. I'll give it a shot, congrats!
- pepijndevos 14y agoThat looks great. How does it compare to, say Hubot? That's what is running on TRC.
- StavrosK 14y agoWell, the idea is that it will provide more functionality without the hassle of hosting it yourself. As to the specific commands, Hubot has more, at the moment, but Instabot's list is growing.
- fredoliveira 14y agoPerhaps creating a thin layer of middleware so that your work supports hubot scripts is a good idea, then!
- StavrosK 14y agoYep, but hubot scripts are already very short and easy to implement, so it shouldn't be much trouble either way!
- pepijndevos 14y agoI'm in here and on the demo server to answer questions and take feedback. Word of advice: don't all pick demo1.
- Xylakant 14y agoHow does it compare to grove for example?
- pepijndevos 14y agoGood question. They are obviously similar in that they are both IRC and more. The key is in the 'more' part. One thing I'm working on is file sharing. This already works in the web client. Desktop is going to be tricky, involving DCC probably. Currently my search/history story is not so strong, but that's also being worked on: https://github.com/znc/znc/pull/325 https://github.com/znc/znc/pull/325
- tjosten 14y agoWhy would I pay for IRC?
- scriptdude 14y agoI know right? Am I missing something here? What does this server offer extra that would explain the hefty $20p/mo pricing? I can just open a free private IRC channel on any server and use that?
- chmullig 14y agoSome measure of privacy & control. Of course, if you care enough about that you shouldn't be using any exterior service.
- sanderjd 14y agoLet's say you have a developer whose time is worth $120/hr to you. If that developer spends two hours futzing with configuring an irc channel in a year and no time futzing with this service then it has paid for itself without needing to offer anything extra. It seems like they're attempting some extra features to sweeten the deal anyway.
- pbiggar 14y agoDescribe "on any server". Like a $20/m AWS micro?
- kyrias 14y agoOn any IRC server. There's absolutely no reason to host your own.
- klrr 14y agoWhy is it soo expensive? Otherwise relatively good idea.
- pepijndevos 14y agoBecause you get a full VPS, maintained by me. At 10 people, it's already cheaper than other services, which usually charge a few bucks per user.
- wedtm 14y agoYour pricing is what failed it for me. I can get a 512MB VPS from DigitalOcean for $5/month. I love this idea, though. I just feel that your approach of giving a full VPS is a bad idea. People who want a full VPS will buy a full VPS for much cheaper than the 20GBP you're offering it for. What you need to do is multi-tenant your hosts, and isolate them from each other. Then you'll get costs savings that you can pass on to your customer; which will put you in line competitively with the likes of HipChat and Campfire. Great idea, can't wait to see what comes of it!
- absconditus 14y agoThe cheapest Campfire plan is $12 per month and the second cheapest is $24. HipChat is $2 per user per month. 20 euros per month with no user limit is entirely in line with this pricing.
- iuguy 14y ago> Because you get a full VPS, maintained by me. This is bad. You're throwing resources away and increasing your management overhead. It would make more sense to have some sort of bouncer-type proxy to determine the source then route through to a dedicated ircd instance on a shared box (e.g. x ircd instances, one per customer).
- absconditus 14y agoI find it rather annoying that someone on HN will complain about the price of a service no matter how low it is. $20 per month is absolutely nothing. Most of the other team chat services cost more, and for good reason. Businesses are more than willing to pay a lot of money ($20 is not a lot) for software. Broke college students are not a good target demographic.
- sandstrom 14y agoPerhaps there is something to learn from grove.io (I'm not saying it's a bad idea, only that you should learn more about what didn't work for them -- which you presumably already have) https://grove.io/blog/grove-shutting-down-october-13 https://grove.io/blog/grove-shutting-down-october-13
- pepijndevos 14y agoIt didn't take over the world, and I don't expect to either. Some people go live on a farm and herd sheep, I herd servers. Another thing I took away from that is that closed source software dies with their author. Open source lives forever.
- frankwiles 14y agoEncourage you to read the more recent blog posts at https://grove.io/blog/ https://grove.io/blog/ as well. My company acquired Grove and are continuing to run it profitably I might add.
- jakerocheleau 14y agoThat's great! I just found Grove in this comments thread and it does look very promising. Best of luck with the service.
- dsl 14y agoPownce, Convore, Grove, all shared similar fates, I think its more indicative of the founder not the business.
- iloveponies 14y agoPersonal opinions of said founder aside, all three were bringing arguably trivial products to market where there already was a large presence of two or more players dominating (Twitter/Facebook/status.net for Pownce, HipChat/Campfire for Grove) and with a lack of game-changing innovation to separate them. Makes less sense to blame the people, rather than lay blame to what they did (or did not) do.
- kami8845 14y agoI don't want IRC. I want HipChat (inline images, ability to directly upload & share media, persistence, good searching, integrated video, HTTP API) but with non-shit native clients. IRC is a fucking dinosaur, I feel something like this doesn't have the capability to really improve the situation.
- pepijndevos 14y agoFair point. TRC offers persistence via ZNC. Some of the other points are offered by some clients. File sharing is a work in progress for TRC, but a very important feature to me.
- kami8845 14y agoDon't see this as me putting you down. I just wish people started working on the next generation of group chat (which is a HUGE field) rather than just piling more of the same on top of old stuff.
- prawnsalad 14y agoDeveloper of the kiwiirc.com IRC client here (Unaffiliated with teamrelaychat.nl). While I agree that there are far better protocols than IRC for todays modern world, IRC still has a long way to go and is currently being extended to push it further in that direction. It still has millions of active users today so it's clear it has done something right. Inline media, file uploading/sharing, mobile messaging, persistence, log searching, APIs, etc, etc can all be achieved with IRC and is actively being developed with the kiwiirc.com client that this startup is using giving it a great start.
- guruz 14y agoI love companies that try to make modern use of IRC and monetize that :-) It's a dinosaur but it works and somehow still has a lot of users. Chicken egg problem? Network effect? Nerd 1337ness? shameless plug: We're offering hosting for Quassel(cores), a distributed IRC client that enables access to the same user/backlog from multiple different devices: http://woboq.com/quassel.html http://woboq.com/quassel.html
- btipling 14y agoPersonal projects are not startups. I don't know where this falls in, but it bugs me when I see something where someone maybe spent a couple of weeks on it and call it a startup. Have you talked to investors? Have you quit your day job? Are you seeing startup like weekly growth?
- pepijndevos 14y agoI'm pretty serious about this.
- pbiggar 14y agoIf I may ask, why? I don't personally think this is going to be successful, what with Hipchat and Campfire in the same space (which are very very popular) and grove.io having a good name for it and competing directly against you. Edit: I think you also misunderstand the value proposition for your customers: you mentioned above that you should buy because you get "a full VPS, maintained by me", which is very odd.
- city41 14y agoThere is also Flowdock[0], which wants to compete pretty aggressively here (disclaimer, I work for the company that bought Flowdock) [0] http://www.flowdock.com http://www.flowdock.com
- pbiggar 14y agoYes indeed. I have a FlowDock account and my company (https://circleci.com https://circleci.com) integrates with you guys. I'm curious though: how big are you guys? I only mentioned HipChat and Campfire as they appear to be pervasive, and while I've been hearing more and more people mention Flowdock, it doesn't seem like you're an 800 pound gorilla that he should be afraid to compete against (yet!).
- city41 14y ago
- jokull 14y agoCongrats! It’d be cool if I could collect uploaded files and logs into S3.
- pepijndevos 14y agoYou can! Well, sortof. On the web client you can upload files to S3. Logs are stored on local disk though. Web interface for logs is being worked on: https://github.com/znc/znc/pull/325 https://github.com/znc/znc/pull/325
- math0ne 14y agoDemo not working...
- christianboyle 14y agoIt's a bad idea to use "I'll" and "Forever" in the same 6" radius of each other.
- niggler 14y ago"I'll publish the deploy scripts and help you migrate." This might actually be useful sooner rather than later.
- ad93611 14y agoThere is an opportunity for IRC and XMPP protocols to co-exist in the same group chat and solve customer needs better. One of our customers is a YC company, that moved their group chat from a IRC based system to our XMPP based group chat product[1], because IRC did not work well for them. After they started using us, we figured that some people still preferred IRC and some wanted the ease of use of XMPP. The solution was a simple bot that will bridge the messages between the IRC channel and the group chat. This is now working out very well for them. They now have benefits of both IRC and XMPP on their website. I'll be happy to talk more details and possibly collaborate. My email in profile. [1] - https://groups.gaglers.com/ https://groups.gaglers.com/
- philsnow 14y agoYou can also have an irc interface to xmpp group chats using bitlbee.
- rekoros 14y agoCan I search chat history with this tool?
- bravura 14y agoI need it to be dead simple for people to join the chat, using existing chat clients. i.e. whatever they have installed, I can't ask them to install something new. What I mean is this: A lot of people I want to invite into chat, it's an experiment for them and they aren't really committed. Oh, I have to install IRC software? Sorry, too much work. Oh, I can't access it from AIM/gchat/etc? Sorry, too much work. These are the people I want to onboard, so they can see the value in participating in my chat room. What is the tool that allows me to attract anyone to the chat room, without them installing new software?
- jakerocheleau 14y agoWould the best solution be a web-based client? I have XChat on all my Windows machines and use Colloquy on my Macbook so I never worry about IRC support. But it's obvious that not everybody uses IRC on a daily basis. I would wonder if it's possible to support people using their own desktop client, while others alternatively use a webpage on the site which connects into the same IRC channel.
- city41 14y ago> What is the tool that allows me to attract anyone to the chat room, without them installing new software? I think web based, non IRC, solutions have that covered really well.
- ninetenel 14y agoWhat are the advantages of this over say a hosted jabber or lync system? also what authentication options are available I can't seem to find a mention on the site
- danial 14y agoThis looks cool. Nice job. I like the IRC style of chatrooms as it's familiar to me, but as others have already stated, I would prefer a service that provides additional features (ala HipChat or Campfire) such as file sharing, searchable history, and allows attendees to jump on a video call. Bonus points if you allow users to join over the phone as well. We use Google Hangouts for video conferencing with my team of 3 (all remote), but we have to keep a campfire session open for sharing files and links relevant to the discussion. Even with this set up I'm missing a way to join our ad-hoc conference calls over the phone when I'm away from my computer.
- lucian303 14y agoIRC, in general, and as the primary or only means of communication for a company ends up being and unintelligible disaster in my experience.