Show HN: Kwak, a real-time discussion platform

https://kwak.io

by vhf • 11 years ago

33 25 11 years ago

kwak.io

dedif8• 11 years ago

Hi, we wanted to show you a little something, so here it is.

We suggest you also read the manifesto[0] we wrote, telling more about our mission on this project.

[0] https://kwak.io/blog

bastijn• 11 years ago

In my opinion you could have chosen a far better moment to launch, and a far better launch than the current. Don't expect your potential users to start digging for info for themselves (launch content) on a product they don't know and which on first sight is only irc (launch timing: better launched a bit later when you had a killer feature).

To me it is like you are introducing the iphone1 with the same famous talk by jobs, but stopping just before the it is one device killer punch line. Instead you are promisingbthat the 3 devices will become one in the future, with a lot less credit than Apple had at the time.

Lets end with saying good luck. I hope to see a subsequent announcement one day which reaches the FP, telling us you made it :).

dedif8• 11 years ago

I totally get your point. Nearly everyone we talked to said "Great idea". We are simply applying the MVP principle, hopefully we'll grow from there :)

loomi• 11 years ago

nice logo finally!

dedif8• 11 years ago

With a Meteor backend.

meritt• 11 years ago

"real-time discussion platform"

So... it's chat?

dedif8• 11 years ago

Chat is more of a generic term. The discussions we refer to are content based (right now centered around one hashtag or a Tweet). We will have other contents soon (hint: original content).

degenerate• 11 years ago

Very nice. The UI feels slightly slower (more sluggish) than web IRC chats. The ability to enable audio on messages or @mentions (in settings) is a good addition. But how does kwak want/expect people to use this? www.kwak.io just has 4 hashtags and jumps me straight into a chatroom. Either I am missing something or there's nothing more to this "Show HN" than literally showing it?

dedif8• 11 years ago

We haven't dig too much into optimization yet, it's _almost_ vanilla Meteor with MongoDB. The hashtags are created by the users, and they automatically rank based on activity, we will have many more interesting ranking algorithms to come.

aaron-lebo• 11 years ago

Where did this sudden interest in reinventing IRC come from? It seems we get one of these every day now.

CephalopodMD• 11 years ago

It seems like this is, in fact, just a skinned IRC and not a reimplementation.

dedif8• 11 years ago

What makes you think it's skinned IRC?

- you can't change nick

- you can go full anonymous

- Hashtags (or channels if you like) are automatically ranked)

- you can post media

- ...

Phemist• 11 years ago

I like the name. A platform to leave our 'kwakjes'. And in real-time.

nemoniac2• 11 years ago

For those who might be wondering, it's a Dutch word for 'ejaculate'.

tomsmeding• 11 years ago

Uh no not really. It means quack or "to slam down", or something. But that's not the common meaning. Are you flemish? Don't know whether it might have extra meanings there.

toggle• 11 years ago

This looks exactly like Shout[1]. This seems to be an IRC channel, and you have a web interface (using Shout) hosted on your domain, with some of Shout's features removed so that people can't use it to connect to other IRC servers. And you aren't giving any credit to Shout.

*EDIT: My apologies, I totally jumped the gun there. I didn't see the "?" at the bottom, which states that that's exactly what this is. I still think that you could give a little more credit to them, though. In my opinion, this is more than just "based" on Shout, as your credits say.

[1] http://shout-irc.com/

dedif8• 11 years ago

shout is MIT opensource, we ack the use of the looknfeel (see our about). Kwak is by no mean IRC backed, it's our own dev work based on Meteor.

The interface will change eventually to support all the features that we intend.

We first started by mapping IRC features and for that shout is super convenient .. but it is just the start ;)

fiatjaf3• 11 years ago

Shout is MIT, so they don't need to give any credit.

Dirlewanger• 11 years ago

Sooo, a Gitter clone?

dedif8• 11 years ago

More of a Slack for the rest of us. Please have a look at our manifesto: https://kwak.io/blog

pixellab• 11 years ago

Very nice start! Dope logo.

Good idea to go MVP and get it out in the world and get some learning going. Of course the down side to MVCs is the user doesn't know it's MVC — some comments might reflect that ;)

Looking forward to seeing where you take this IRC-esq revival!

benoror• 11 years ago

As I chat with one of the founders, If I had to describe the service I would write something like:

"kwak.io: a discussion-based (channels), real-time (chat) platform (server)"

which forme it sounds like: server + chat + channels === 'IRC'

Nowdays we have plenty of modern alternatives to good-old IRC: Slack, Gitter, Hipchat. So I asked where does kwak.io fits in?

For me it's a fun but unclear experiment. According to their manifesto (https://medium.com/@kwak.io/kwak-s-manifesto-14c69104e70) I get the "IRC communication style" part, but I'm not totally clear how will they achieve the "mixed with modern social features" part.

fiatjaf3• 11 years ago

This is IRC. Also the interface is the same of the Shout IRC client: http://shout-irc.com/

fiatjaf3• 11 years ago

That said, I've read the manifesto and I liked the idea. This has my support.

Show HN: Kwak, a real-time discussion platform

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