[sethammons]

I have a few features I want in a work chat app:

Room topic with link support, private rooms, the ability to add more people to that room, direct messaging, phone notifications (and proper sync and the ability to set do-not-disturb), and emoji/gifs. I know some folks don't like those, but I think they are fun and help convey emotion that is otherwise lost in text.

Nice to haves: Search, pinned items, api for bot integration. Color themes. Limited markdown support.

What I never want: link expander: seriously, I don't like it - it takes up space for no value. WYSIWYG editor: I don't think rich text beyond simple markdown is useful.

Hipchat was ok. Slack is ok. I think Slack is a bit better as Hipchat had regular outages.