New Chat Thing Convore Is Google Wave Minus the Suck

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/26367/

by pg • 15 years ago

115 59 15 years ago

jhrobert3• 15 years ago

IM for groups. Cool. Now I need to have this integrated with my other IMs. I just can't have so many windows open at the same time (or can I?). Maybe Google Chrome Destop Notification? Maybe http://imo.im ? just guessing.

Nice work.

ericflo3• 15 years ago

Thanks!

One of the things we really wanted to have before we launched was an initial version of an API ready so that people could experiment with building things like you describe. We've been happy so far that people have started to do just that, including someone going so far as to start working on an Android client! https://github.com/Pewpewarrows/Convoid

We happily encourage efforts to integrate with other services, although it can be tricky due to our added layer of structure (topics) that both sets us apart, but also makes it match up less cleanly with existing clients and services.

jhrobert3• 15 years ago

I will get a look at your API. The one feature I will look for is the ability to get the list of the members of a group (so that I can dynamically create a wiki for them).

Maybe I can do that using https://convore.com/api/groups/:group_id.json -- but where is the doc about what it returns?

Anyways, it's nice to see that more and more new services come with an (often open) API. Well done :)

nicpottier• 15 years ago

Hrmm.. the image upload is not as cool as I'd hope. Yes it includes it, but you still need to upload and host it somewhere yourself.

This could be really killer if it allowed uploads of arbitrary attachments and images. Could see it as an interesting way of keeping a log with a client.

ericflo3• 15 years ago

We've definitely heard this feedback from others, especially those coming from other web-based chat products that tend to include this feature.

Right now we haven't offered this as a feature because we're a free app, and hosting more than a few files and images would be cost prohibitive. We're definitely open to building it in the future if it can be subsidized somehow, or if we directly charge for it.

axod4• 15 years ago

FWIW, file upload is a drop in the ocean compared to the bandwidth of managing a large number of chat users lines of chat ;)

dabeeeenster• 15 years ago

Try http://grabbox.devsoft.no/

antimatter15• 15 years ago

<shameless_plug> try drag2up http://drag2up.appspot.com/ </shameless_plug>

thwarted• 15 years ago

Eventually, we'll settle on a conversation formatting that really works for the Internet.

oomkiller• 15 years ago

I really liked being able to see what the other person was typing in wave, made having a conversation quicker as I could beging typing a response while they were still typing, like a real conversation.

ez77• 15 years ago

And this was possible (in the 90's!) with good old ICQ...

freakwit• 15 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_%28software%29

1983 with talk. Anybody got anything earlier?

buster4• 15 years ago

Like Google Wave? So does this have an open protocol? Server-to-Server communication?

I don't see where it can be compared to wave. They seem to compare it to IRC, but also IRC is a protocol, convore is just a service.

I still hope wave sees some progress as apache project. :(

geoffw82• 15 years ago

Your saying you don't see ANY likeness to Google Wave? I'll give you a hint: the front-end user layer.

jasonlotito6• 15 years ago

The front-end? The technical demo? The least existing part of Google Wave? If that's all, it's nothing like Google Wave.

Edit: I should point out that if you don't understand what buster or I am talking about, don't worry. A lot of people don't. It's Google's failed marketing of Wave that did this.

Basically, people thought Google Wave was MS Outlook, or Gmail. It wasn't. Wave was essentially email, comments, chat, communication, etc. Once you start understanding everything it could do, and understand that everyone already knew how to use Wave, you really started to appreciate what they were trying to do.

buster4• 15 years ago

Yes, so you didn't get it, too. Wave isn't the sandbox you've seen on the web. If i remember correctly, the webclient didn't even use the "real protocol" but some hacked-together protocol buffers for demonstration purposes. Not sure about today, but when the beta started there wasn't even an official client/server protocol. It was still under discussion[1]. Sadly, the world never saw the "real" Wave, with server-to-server communication, different clients, etc.

[1] https://groups.google.com/group/wave-protocol/browse_thread/...

mechanical_fish• 15 years ago

This is why Wave failed. Nobody knew quite what it was. They still don't know.

Moreover: nobody cares. People do not care how the tools work. They care about their problems. Having an online conversation in the right mode - not too high-latency, yet not too synchronous, and not too disorganized - is a problem. Users understand that IRC and Wave and Convore are all billed as attempts to solve that problem. Therefore, they are all kind of alike.

If people actually use these tools for a while even non-engineers will eventually come to understand the substantial differences between them, but another way that Wave and Convore and IRC are all alike is that right now most customers have never heard of them, let alone tried them, let alone figured them out.

buster4• 15 years ago

It's a shame, really. Even in my job nobody seemed to "get it" when i tried to explain benefits and the "real" nature of wave (that it's a protocol). And i'm working in a heavily messaging (mail, etc.) oriented company. I got everyone beta accounts and yet nobody got it. It was all about the sandbox/webclient. I think Google did a lot wrong with the promotion of wave.

Anyway, i'm eagerly waiting for the completion of the incubator process on apache[1] and will take another look at the state of wave afterwards. I still think the project is one of the most underrated projects of the last years. I very much hope that the project won't just die.

[1] http://www.waveprotocol.org/wave-in-a-box/apache-incubator-r...

jasonlotito6• 15 years ago

Yep. Marketing. People thought they had built a chat client. In reality, they were providing a protocol, and to show off this protocol, they built a UI to demo it. People assumed the UI was Wave, and stopped there. =( Such potential.

As for people not caring: that's a result of not understanding the real product and the real potential. Assuming Wave is just about real time communication is really doing it a great disservice.

tarvaina• 15 years ago

For another startup in the same space, see http://flowdock.com/

Ezku• 15 years ago

Flowdock is intended to fill quite a different niche. It's supposed to facilitate teamwork, not spontaneous group communication. But if that's what you're looking for, Flowdock does do the job. I participated in the beta and found it quite nice.

old-gregg• 15 years ago

Personal experience here: Convore rocks. Take it from a long-time IRC junkie. Dump Skype/IM for all your project-related chats and try using them and you quickly will see why Convore works and works well.

I remember Chatterous trying a similar play but can't recall what happened to them. Maybe the GUI wasn't so slick or maybe they pivoted into something we're unaware of...

kul• 15 years ago

Indeed, Chatterous are now A Thinking Ape and I believe making revenue in the millions. I think they have one of the highest grossing iphone apps of all time. http://www.techvibes.com/blog/a-thinking-ape-settles-into-va...

wallflower• 15 years ago

A Thinking Ape is hiring engineers! And HN dedication is a plus!

> and it would be a definite plus if...

you are registered at and regularly read Hacker News (and send us your username if you do)

http://www.athinkingape.com/jobs

eik3_de2• 15 years ago

Actually it rocks so hard that I see the risk of sucking up one's remaining productivity time slots that exist between HN visits ;)

landtuna• 15 years ago

I had more confidence that Goole Apps-based Wave would be able to secure company-sensitive discussions.

thorax• 15 years ago

Chatterous's Google Talk integration was so stellar (it's broken most the time now) that our teams used it exclusively for cross-team chat for the past few years. I was one of their biggest fans but now I know they're not giving it much attention anymore.

Given that, I really want to see convore integration with jabber/gtalk somehow, but I'm not sure how it would work for rooms+topics versus just rooms.

eik3_de2• 15 years ago

Any experienced campfire users around that have tried convore? Can you compare?

jarin• 15 years ago

The one thing I'm really sad that Convore doesn't have is auto-formatting of pasted code. Other than that it is basically like Campfire but with a lot of public groups as well (you can make private groups too).

stcredzero2• 15 years ago

The service saves everything that's been said -- like Wave, only Convore exists

Seems TR is like news, only without fact checking. I was playing with Wave just the other day.

EDIT: TR, not TC. Thanks, internet!

micrypt• 15 years ago

...only it's not TC.

augustl• 15 years ago

I don't consider centralized services "thing x if it was invented today", if thing x can be distributed. The UI looks nice, and they did a great job. But anyone can host IRC servers, only convore can host convore.

motters• 15 years ago

But I don't want to live in another walled garden where I can be spied on or herded as a cash cow. What's needed are open protocols, like IRC or Wave.

Zakharov• 15 years ago

"In chats, Convore ... automatically embeds images"

This seems risky. There's a lot of public IRC rooms I'd avoid if they allowed anyone to show me anything they wanted. IRC solves this by not embedding images, Wave solves this by being oriented towards small groups rather than public discussions, forums solve this by making it difficult enough to register that a ban matters. How is Convore going to solve this?

dools• 15 years ago

I'm interested in using Convore to host some work discussions we currently use IRC for because of the "history" aspect and the fact I can grab the messages through an API and import into my task management interface.

The only problem with it I have is the name! Maybe it's because I'm Australian. We say it like "Con-vaw". Is that right? I can't imagine telling someone in person "hey I was on CON-VAW the other night and this guy said such and such". Really weird name but a nicely executed product.

stcredzero2• 15 years ago

Shorten that to "conv".

dangrossman• 15 years ago

I'm American and would not think to pronounce it like that. "Con-vor"/"Conv-or".

rdouble• 15 years ago

It does seem a bit difficult to pronounce with an Aussie accent. Since toilets are dunnys, chickens are chooks, Brits are Poms and Americans are Seppos why not just make a typical Australian linguistic move and make up some ridiculous word to use instead? I'd suggest Convizza but maybe that's too obvious.

mahmud2• 15 years ago

Never heard "Seppos" before.

Most Aussies would probably take one of the -o or -ies/-ers "colliqualization" rules :-) My bet is on convo.

mahmud2• 15 years ago

Dunno, I pronounced it like it's an Italian word: kon-voo-Re.

jsilence• 15 years ago

Uhh wow, another very beautiful walled garden?

Ignore.

eagleal• 15 years ago

Months ago I talked with a guy who was working on a similar idea http://tap.info. (Well, the site is down as of now)

http://oi53.tinypic.com/2w1wfn7.jpg - I can't find a better screenshot

keturn• 15 years ago

Isn't this what we tried with Pibb? May they have a better go of it than Pibb did.

zwadia• 15 years ago

If convore is making collaboration cooler.. then I think what Asana has is superior as it currently stands.

I see convore as a great alternative to the Twitter hashtag. A richer, more real-time, better indexed alternative. It can still use Twitter for Outreach but the action is in convore.

itsnotvalid• 15 years ago

I need to say one thing though, how is this going to beat against Facebook groups?

The "new" facebook groups can group chat (with online members of a group) and also semi-message (via a news feed) and could potentially message a bunch of guys in the group via facebook messages.

Of course they haven't done it to the point of having short topic threads of any kind, which is what I like with concore. (in fact, every topic in a group in convore is like a channel of its own.)

New Chat Thing Convore Is Google Wave Minus the Suck

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