5 ms·

I like Slack, because I can rely on non-technical people to use it, but if I'm working with people who actually know what they're doing, I don't see the advanta

I like Slack, because I can rely on non-technical people to use it, but if I'm working with people who actually know what they're doing, I don't see the advantage over IRC. For free, it's a great service. For $5/mo it's a great service...but for $5/mo/user, it's pretty pricey! If you don't pay, it doesn't make a good replacement for email, because you don't get infinite scrollback.

vertex-four 12y ago
The advantage over IRC is centralised, searchable history, along with the fact that people don't need to be logged in all the time to be able to ping them. Sure, you could set up a bot with IRC, but then you have a separate interface for it and nobody uses it so all your discussions practically disappear forever, aside from their results in other systems. EDIT: By the way - $5/mo/user is a tad less than what an on-site Exchange user costs, and is the same price as Office 365 Business Essentials (which basically gives you an email account and Lync). It's not overpriced, IMHO, given how useful it is.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 12y ago
  It’s easy. Every user is a bouncer. They don’t need to configure anything. My former company did this and it worked well.
  - vertex-four 12y ago
    Does this bouncer have a log search interface, or does finding something that someone said a while ago amount to opening up a terminal and grepping, and hoping that nobody loses their logs? What happens when someone new joins the company and wants to see whether there's been any discussion on <whatever>? It's not exactly a slick system, though it probably works so long as everybody in the company is a Linux software developer.
    - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 12y ago
      No. It doesn’t. Search was performed by a web app or a bot. It was slick. My former employer was mostly customer support and everybody loved using IRC. Myself included.
mercer 12y ago
I think your first paragraph is key though. I introduced Slack at a startup I'm working for, and I think the main reason we kept using it, and now use it for almost anything, was because the CEO and designer felt comfortable with it. The same applies to Trello, in my experience. I've been able to convince all my clients, including the ones who will send me emails with attached .docx documents that contain low-res images for their gallery, and as a result I can basically live inside Trello. Slack is getting close to playing a similar role, and the only reason it doesn't is that for the trickle of communication with many clients Trello is better.
- whichfawkes 12y ago
  Agreed. I think my perspective on cost may be a little skewed because I'm using it for a University CS Club with over 100 members and we can't pay $500/month for it. I have less incentive to introduce it for the startup I work with because those people are all comfortable with email, and busy with enough other things that I'm not going to see 'instant message like' responses anyway.
  - malnourish 12y ago
    You should contact them directly and work out a deal. I would imagine they would agree to favorable terms if it's academic-related.
  - ddebernardy 12y ago
    Echoing malnourish, touch base with them and highlight to them that your context is that of a university. I'd gather they'll give the service away to you for free, if only for the sake of making sure you're team members are familiar with -- and addicted to -- using it by the time you're done studying.
  - tonystubblebine 12y ago
    The Lite option is free and has no limit on number of users. We use the paid option for a team made up of our staff, but we also just launched a new team with the Lite option as a way to talk to the sellers in our marketplace. I just invited 700 people of those people in to Slack and plan to invite several thousand more. The limitation is that the archive is limited to 10k messages. But there are plenty of use cases where that doesn't matter.
sigil 12y ago
Slack has an IRC gateway. [1] It works okay. My one gripe is that I can't figure out how to @mention my fellow Slack users via IRC, so I usually have the web interface open as well. I hear you on the lack of infinite scrollback. They have to incentivize the upgrade somehow. [1] https://slack.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connecting-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP https://slack.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connec...
- baddox 12y ago
  It seems like Slack highlights any mention of your handle regardless of whether its prepended by an "@".
ddebernardy 12y ago
Mm... If $5/month/user makes any difference to your bottom line in comparison to salaries and the benefits you are getting from the service, I suspect that you have a problem -- and one that has nothing to do with Slack. (As in, you've a serious sales or management problem in your organization, or you're not a qualified lead, e.g. you're a student or a non-profit.)
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 12y ago
  It’s this attitude that enables businesses to accumulate an unwieldy number of services! My company subscribes to Google Apps, HipChat, Slack, Yammer, Zoom, … The costs accumulate.
  - saturdayplace 12y ago
    Well, sure they accumulate. So do salaries. If it's not worth the money to your company, don't spend it. Same goes for salaries.
    - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 12y ago
      I don’t understand your analogy.
      - GuiA 12y ago
        Imagine that an employee is costing you $X a year (that includes pay, but also things like health insurance, taxes, their computer/desk chair/etc etc etc). If you use Slack, your employee now costs you $X + $60 a year. Usually in tech, X is a 6 digit number (or very high 5 digit number). If $60 makes such a difference in that balance, there are probably big things you should worry about.
        logicuce 12y ago
        Those numbers are not true for even half of the world. Also, I would want everybody in my org to be part of the same communication channel including every non tech folk. You will definitely find folks for whom the $100/mo/user is not a big deal and Slack does have that plan with needed features. However if I am bootstrapping with a business with majority of non tech part time employees, its not a quick decision to commit to $8/mo/user. For comparison, Google Apps provide their complete suite at $5/mo/user. Desk.com provides interfacing with customer starting at $3/mo/agent. With the value they provide I don't think twice before committing to it. (btw, I could only see their cheapest plan at $8/mo/user paid monthly, where is $5/mo coming from?)
vehementi 12y ago
Unless I'm missing some feature you're alluding to, Slack is a superset of IRC. It is objectively a mistake to use IRC instead of Slack (cost & "where is my data" aisde - only speaking of features)
Nickoladze 12y ago
I have a small group of friends (just 6) that have been using IRC for years. We switched over to Slack purely because now I no longer have to manage/pay for a server. Most of us use the IRC gateway and ignore the website, but we do use the Android app. Last I checked, IRC apps were pretty terrible.

vertex-four 12y ago

The advantage over IRC is centralised, searchable history, along with the fact that people don't need to be logged in all the time to be able to ping them. Sure, you could set up a bot with IRC, but then you have a separate interface for it and nobody uses it so all your discussions practically disappear forever, aside from their results in other systems. EDIT: By the way - $5/mo/user is a tad less than what an on-site Exchange user costs, and is the same price as Office 365 Business Essentials (which basically gives you an email account and Lync). It's not overpriced, IMHO, given how useful it is.

Q6T46nT668w6i3m 12y ago
It’s easy. Every user is a bouncer. They don’t need to configure anything. My former company did this and it worked well.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  Does this bouncer have a log search interface, or does finding something that someone said a while ago amount to opening up a terminal and grepping, and hoping that nobody loses their logs? What happens when someone new joins the company and wants to see whether there's been any discussion on <whatever>? It's not exactly a slick system, though it probably works so long as everybody in the company is a Linux software developer.
  - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 12y ago
    No. It doesn’t. Search was performed by a web app or a bot. It was slick. My former employer was mostly customer support and everybody loved using IRC. Myself included.

mercer 12y ago

I think your first paragraph is key though. I introduced Slack at a startup I'm working for, and I think the main reason we kept using it, and now use it for almost anything, was because the CEO and designer felt comfortable with it. The same applies to Trello, in my experience. I've been able to convince all my clients, including the ones who will send me emails with attached .docx documents that contain low-res images for their gallery, and as a result I can basically live inside Trello. Slack is getting close to playing a similar role, and the only reason it doesn't is that for the trickle of communication with many clients Trello is better.

whichfawkes 12y ago
Agreed. I think my perspective on cost may be a little skewed because I'm using it for a University CS Club with over 100 members and we can't pay $500/month for it. I have less incentive to introduce it for the startup I work with because those people are all comfortable with email, and busy with enough other things that I'm not going to see 'instant message like' responses anyway.
- malnourish 12y ago
  You should contact them directly and work out a deal. I would imagine they would agree to favorable terms if it's academic-related.
- ddebernardy 12y ago
  Echoing malnourish, touch base with them and highlight to them that your context is that of a university. I'd gather they'll give the service away to you for free, if only for the sake of making sure you're team members are familiar with -- and addicted to -- using it by the time you're done studying.
- tonystubblebine 12y ago
  The Lite option is free and has no limit on number of users. We use the paid option for a team made up of our staff, but we also just launched a new team with the Lite option as a way to talk to the sellers in our marketplace. I just invited 700 people of those people in to Slack and plan to invite several thousand more. The limitation is that the archive is limited to 10k messages. But there are plenty of use cases where that doesn't matter.

sigil 12y ago

Slack has an IRC gateway. [1] It works okay. My one gripe is that I can't figure out how to @mention my fellow Slack users via IRC, so I usually have the web interface open as well. I hear you on the lack of infinite scrollback. They have to incentivize the upgrade somehow. [1] https://slack.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connecting-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP https://slack.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connec...

baddox 12y ago
It seems like Slack highlights any mention of your handle regardless of whether its prepended by an "@".

ddebernardy 12y ago

Mm... If $5/month/user makes any difference to your bottom line in comparison to salaries and the benefits you are getting from the service, I suspect that you have a problem -- and one that has nothing to do with Slack. (As in, you've a serious sales or management problem in your organization, or you're not a qualified lead, e.g. you're a student or a non-profit.)

Q6T46nT668w6i3m 12y ago
It’s this attitude that enables businesses to accumulate an unwieldy number of services! My company subscribes to Google Apps, HipChat, Slack, Yammer, Zoom, … The costs accumulate.
- saturdayplace 12y ago
  Well, sure they accumulate. So do salaries. If it's not worth the money to your company, don't spend it. Same goes for salaries.
  - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 12y ago
    I don’t understand your analogy.
    - GuiA 12y ago
      Imagine that an employee is costing you $X a year (that includes pay, but also things like health insurance, taxes, their computer/desk chair/etc etc etc). If you use Slack, your employee now costs you $X + $60 a year. Usually in tech, X is a 6 digit number (or very high 5 digit number). If $60 makes such a difference in that balance, there are probably big things you should worry about.
      - logicuce 12y ago
        Those numbers are not true for even half of the world. Also, I would want everybody in my org to be part of the same communication channel including every non tech folk. You will definitely find folks for whom the $100/mo/user is not a big deal and Slack does have that plan with needed features. However if I am bootstrapping with a business with majority of non tech part time employees, its not a quick decision to commit to $8/mo/user. For comparison, Google Apps provide their complete suite at $5/mo/user. Desk.com provides interfacing with customer starting at $3/mo/agent. With the value they provide I don't think twice before committing to it. (btw, I could only see their cheapest plan at $8/mo/user paid monthly, where is $5/mo coming from?)

vehementi 12y ago

Unless I'm missing some feature you're alluding to, Slack is a superset of IRC. It is objectively a mistake to use IRC instead of Slack (cost & "where is my data" aisde - only speaking of features)

Nickoladze 12y ago

I have a small group of friends (just 6) that have been using IRC for years. We switched over to Slack purely because now I no longer have to manage/pay for a server. Most of us use the IRC gateway and ignore the website, but we do use the Android app. Last I checked, IRC apps were pretty terrible.