Comment by olivierduval | Hacker News Reader

Comment by olivierduval | Hacker News Reader

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OK, so the point is the "real time" interactions

Actually, at work, I'm either in 2 situations:

- I need a quick answer for a simple problem ==> chat (because it's more about getting a simple info and I need it now if possible, or the sooner)

- I need a complete/correct/thoughtfull answer ==> email (because I need someone to really think about it before answering and that person is not available all the time and has other things to do too... so quality of answer is worth waiting)

It may happen that complex email need some clarifications... but if the subject is complex, it usually requires a meeting

It may happen too that a simple answer lead to a complex question... but then we're back at email.

So, I'm not sure that your tool would fit my way of working and/or the places I work for. Moreover, I'm quite sure that "realtime" is one of the WORST possible way of working because it's giving other people a way to manage your time at work (interrupting, etc.)

Real-time platforms cause interruptions, yes. But, that's where we are today with Slack.

So, we're starting off from that point. Let's take real-time chat platforms, and reimagine how we can make them more efficient. More useful. Less noisy. That's the idea for Struct.

The list of people we email is different from the list of people we chat with. In a team, that means, team comms happen on chat platform. And external comms happen on emails. Within a team using a chat platform, it's unlikely that people would chat, and then say, hold on, let me send you an email. If that happens, that's very rare.

What's a lot more likely is you jump from a chat conversation into a video call. Hence, the need for a nice integration with video service (like Slack has huddle).

So, for a certain set of people (your team or community), you're going to use the chat platform. And therefore, the chat platform should be built to enable conversations with good retrieval and focus -- so it can be used for complex conversations. Struct hits that pretty well.

Actually, I think that a real features for chat would be the ability to allow "different speeds":

- some questions requires "urgent" answers (for example: missing info in a meeting)

- some interactions may be processed "in the flow", during the day, when time is available

- some interactions are "human noise", people just chatting

Right now, with teams & others, everything may be "urgent" so you'll have to check and see (so interrupting your work)

Moreover, when it's not urgent, you may decide to answer later... and just forget it (because it's not a new message anymore)

So maybe that's a place where AI could help: show only what's urgent... and reminds at a later time for other kinds of chats

Just an idea

The reason Slack and Teams feels so "urgent", is because there's little going back to reply to an older conversation. Everything is so ephemeral on these platforms, that either you reply now, or it's a goner (slight exaggeration, but mostly true).

Struct's feed system is naturally designed to surface latest, unread conversations. So even if when I've been away for days, I just come back and go thread by thread, like cleaning an inbox. It's a lot smoother system, and you miss nothing.

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