Chats.io, new HTML5 / Node.JS-powered social group chat, launches
chats.io
chats.io
As far as what he could do to improve it, here are some ideas: 1. IRC is a solid and robust chat platform that has been around for a long time, you should really look towards what makes it strong and how it is used. Take that and apply what works towards the web app.
2. After building the foundation on solid chat technology, add in things people expect from a web app. I wouldn't mind seeing actual profiles with publicly available logs and what channels they frequent. You could add friends and what not and know when they login and what channels they frequent as well.
3. Since Node.js is so versatile, look at making it compatible with IRC so that IRC clients can connect to it and function as you would expect. This would be an added feature, but could be huge. Not everyone likes using their browser to chat, I know I don't.
Good luck with it, glad to see someone making some fun stuff with Node.js and showing it off.
4. Prevent people from switching nicks arbitrarily.
5. Cap message site / rate. It's incredibly to just spam the room to hell with massive messages.
6. Don't call it "social". It's chat. It's been done a million times before.
I agree with 6 as long as it is just chat, if he provides more community features outside of just the chat areas, it could be considered more social.
Interestingly, none of the chat apps I've really used are built on node: convore is python, mibbit is java, irccloud is erlang. Too new I guess.
If anyone's interested in a tasteful, persistent, web-based IRC client (ie, bouncer-like) - albeit not using node.js - mention HN in the invite box on https://irccloud.com/
You don't usually get that for free afaik, you'd have to run a bouncer yourself on a vps or something, or attach to screen and use irssi.
Plenty of our users are former screen+irssi users, and many of them are perfectly capable of running a vps+bouncer+whatever themselves, but choose to use us because it's less hassle / more convenient.
That, and the fact we are building a really slick web interface you can access from multiple machines easily. You'd be paying for an integrated server/bouncer/client package.
Also, for many people the €3 and €5 plans are ample; so the €12 represents our most expensive option.
I see this at an ISP, too, all day long: oh, my site's down, what's wrong with your platform?
Man to Plumber: "The pipe burst! What happened? I thought that steel could handle that water pressure".
Subtext: Which is it: do I not really know what steel can handle, did you expect lower pressure than you got, or are you just a bad plumber?
The application is not running.. ECONNREFUSED, Connection refused
Looks like they have/had some issues at their level.
You realize that facebook supports xmpp for chat, so you can use any IM client for facebook chat.
Different strokes for different folks!
Edit: looks like it's back up!