AFAIK Github apps work the same way. Additionally, you need to meet a specific number of customers (I think over 200) to apply to be listed in their market.
Exactly correct. In theory, GitHub's app marketplace offers developers a separate option for "unverified listings", which have "no minimum install or user count requirements", but requires your app to be free.
However, when I submitted a new app as an unverified listing last year, I received a rejection email stating they were only "looking for apps with at least 25 installs". I attempted to appeal (based on their marketplace system's text directly stating there was no minimum user count), but I received no response, and none of the ~dozen engineers I personally know at GitHub were able to help.
I can still make my app available, and implement a third-party billing system, but without a marketplace listing it's much harder to gain exposure and users.
All in all, developing a GitHub app was an extremely frustrating experience, especially since GitHub extensively makes internal use of my open source project upon which my GitHub app was based.
Yikes. Love the app idea. I hate the first use case shown. I've never gotten anything helpful from a CEO/manager slacking me, "How are you doing?" At best I have to stop doing what I'm doing and respond relativity quickly so I seem attentive to this superior. Normally there is no purpose to the interaction so it just feels like wasted time and more wasted time due to context switching.
At it's worst it turns into a checking in conversation with some critique that would be better suited for a phone call or in person meeting.
Advice to CEO's/Managers: The how are things going slacks do not feel like a personal chat. Create a culture where people will ask for help and guidance when they need it and let them do their work.
Every means of corporate communication is part of the noise treadmill.
The old way has too much noise and not everyone gets all the messages. The new way seems to have solved those problems. The new way becomes the 'standard' way of doing things. Then the new way has too much noise and users are forced to adopt noise-reduction. Then the process repeats...
That's why companies have posters on notice boards, posters in kitchens and toilets, company-wide e-mails, department-wide e-mails, an intranet, e-mailed newsletters, an in-house magazine, mandatory slack channels - and now, a tool to send slack PMs in bulk.
I guess channel messages are more likely to be missed than direct messages. This approach also helps the conversation flow through one person, rather than everyone having to see each response. Interesting idea!
While I certainly prefer open discussions, I have noticed that most ppl strongly believe that certain sensitive topics, though they maybe a common theme with everyone, are best discussed 1-on-1.
Went through a similar experience with our own Slack app. We had created a fairly popular app called "Export" for exporting channels from Slack in a variety of formats. It was an approved Slack app for several years before being summarily expunged from the directory when Slack changed their terms of service.
Surprisingly, not being listed in the Slack App Directory is not a death sentence. It just means you have to invest in alternate discovery channels.
I don't either, but if it's going to happen, I'd MUCH rather those messages be sent directly to me via DM rather than being just @channel or @general blasts. At least with DMs it's obvious that I've been sent a message that I need to read.
At first sight, the ability to mass DM individuals on Slack, with all the recipients hidden from each other, just sounds wrong.
However, as Slack positions itself as the new email, and once we remember that email has had bcc since forever, this app/feature no longer appears so sinister anymore.
I agree, particularly because this covers a specific narrow case: the directory won't showcase/feature you, but the app still works. That's not what happens in the classic appstore, where a rejection typically means you're dead in the water - or forced through alternative means like AltStore (which is what I was interested in when I clicked the link).
True. However, the same strategy - "Focus on alternate sources of lead generation" can be applied for applications on Android (and presumably other platforms) where 3rd-party app repositories and sideloading are supported.
Please limit these mass identical msgs to ur app only. Plz don't spam HN.
Cool idea. Clearly there's a market for it. But stop trying to force ur way onto the HN top. Makes U look desperate and attaches a negative feeling to U and ur app/use-case (Hardly wht U want)
So I guess the slack app store is just a directory, and you can still integrate with slack without being listed in their app store?
The article would be a bit easier to understand if it explained this.