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by jarek 3894 days ago
Everything old on IRC is new again.

I read an article about Slack that praised their speed of integrating feedback and iterating with the following example: "the Slack team quickly identified small changes that had a big impact: Within the list of channels, they added fields for a description and the number of people using that channel."
1 comments
t4nkd 3894 days ago
One time I asked why, since cgroups and the pattern of container based deployment had been popular for a decade before Docker started, that containers are so popular right now. We ultimately decided that someone constructing a really easy to use suite of tools around the concept was the reason it has all this love and growth.

Not that I totally disagree, but, signing up for Slack is easier than using NickServ for the average person. There's a bunch of features that make HipChat, Slack, Hall et al easier to use than IRC, especially for someone who doesn't want to learn anything new.

Just worth thinking about...

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jarek 3894 days ago
Replacing RSS with walled-gardens solutions from Internet Bigcos is another example.

In general I agree that ease-of-use is a big factor. Having said that, I was witness to decidedly non-technical teens in a mid-size town quite happily using mIRC in 2004, so maybe we're not giving people quite enough credit. If you tell people something is hard to use they'll believe you.

The real lesson is to look into what has been done and worked before and see how it can be improved if you're looking for "new" ideas and businesses.

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Joof 3894 days ago
My friend's mom used irc in the 90's / early 2000's for dating chatrooms. IRC can be plugged into the browser and embedded into applications seamlessly.

In contrast, I've never even heard of all the things mentioned above.

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Shorel 3894 days ago
The problem with IRC was the channel wars, the hierarchy of founder, ops, +v, etc, and the crazy medieval hierarchy that ensued from it.

The easy of use of bots and flooding scripts was a downside, not an advantage.

Any web page that embedded IRC had to deal with that nonsense.

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jarek 3894 days ago
On Slack the channel owner will form a hierarchy too, if it's less problematic it's because Slack is usually used in a professional setting where flaming is generally frowned upon. You see these kind of issues pop up on the easy-to-use Twitter as well.

It's a social question. The most the tech did wrong was not making flooding impossible in the first place.

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