[adrianmonk]

Protocols and privacy and chat features are all great, but let's not lose sight of the two absolutely killer essential features of every successful chat app / system:

(1) The address book.

(2) The easiest possible signup and setup.

More generally for #1, whatever method(s) you use to find people's contact information and connect with them.

Without that, you could have created the perfect chat experience in every way, but people still won't use it. Because their friends aren't on it and/or they can't find their friends.

A ton of chat apps fail because engineers sit around talking about how to architect things, when the truth is that once you've gotten past the almost-insurmountable hurdle of getting two users onto the system and starting a conversation, the actual mechanism for actually sending messages back and forth is not much more than an implementation detail.

Not that those things aren't important, but they are like 10% of the formula for success, and the other 90% is getting to the point where they can start a chat session.

People's primary need is to communicate. With the people they want or need to communicate with. And via the contact information they have available. (Exchanging contact info for a new service offline is a huge hurdle.) A better experience is better, but at the end of the day, these other concerns will nearly always win out. So you don't get very far trying to use a superior experience as leverage to get people using it. You need to attack that problem more directly.

[_nothing]

So true. One of my most active channels of communication is actually Instagram's chat despite it lacking many features I prefer in a messaging service like a desktop/browser interface and search functionality. But it's what my friends use, more actively than Facebook even, and so it's what I use. If you have Instagram then you already have this messenger, so it becomes a no-brainer.

[stevenicr]

1 - this is a good point, but I'd like to expand on it - it does not have to be address book.

I have helped thousands of people exchange contact info after meeting in various niche chat rooms first, but you can flip that and have your irl friends meet you in decn-chat dot org click the 808game room, we can meet in there and pm/dm a code word or something and make each other contacts in various ways.

Your point is something to keep in mind though, ultimately I think we also need apps that can display a qr code like a one time pad to give someone contact details or any chat rooms to meetup in, Other methods of exchanging info about contact and chat room / chat app options should be added to whatever is going to be really good.

2 - I really agree with this, I spent some money and time on rocketchat development to give an optional 'open lobby' to anyone who enters, just pick a name and you are in.. then if you want extra abilities you can add an email or verify or whatever.

easy to get in is important indeed.