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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

>If you haven’t heard of Beeper before, welcome! We make a universal chat app – one app to send and receive messages on 14 different chat networks.

I feel a little exhausted just thinking about needing to be on 14 different chat networks.

What are people using that for?

Marketing / customer service type chat stuff across networks?

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This idea has existed and been implemented for a very long time- Pidgin was the first client I can remember that would try to bridge across various chat networks. You likely are on 14 different chat "networks" already- you might not think of them as chat networks, but as apps with chat functionality.

Just real quick off the top of my head I can name a bunch: FB Instagram Twitter WhatsApp Telegram Signal Gchat/whatever google calls the chat in gmail these days kik sms Irc Discord

This is just a matter of keeping all those separate apps, or consolidating them into one single one. Back in the early 2000s when I did indeed have friends across AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc... I did use an all in one app to consolidate everything.

Trillian was my first client. It looks like it still exists and now runs on a subscription model:

https://trillian.im/

Also looks like it no longer connects to multiple networks, but uses their own now.

Ha thanks for jogging my memory. I knew pidgin wasn't the first or even the primary one I used but I couldn't recall what else I had used.

I believe EveryBuddy was the first multiprotocol client, but then Gaim got revived and took a bunch of the work the EveryBuddy developers did. As time went on Gaim became Pidgin, and EveryBuddy became Ayttm.

You can still add XMPP accounts, but that's all.

Not a user but I imagine it's like the blackberry model where texts, messenger, whatsapp, and whatever else all go to the same inbox rather than having to check 40 different apps. I really wish that idea would come back.

I wish that idea came back with some sort of iron hard contract protecting user data in perpetuity.

Rarely a single user would use 14 different chat networks. For example for me, I have two WhatsApp accounts (number for my current country + home country), Twitter, Instagram to chat with old friends, Facebook for some relatives, LinkedIn for networking, Signal to chat with my lawyer, Telegram for hobby communities.

I simply wouldn't talk to a lot of people in my life if I had to use a different app for each.

We also aim to be the best chat app, period. So even if you are using only a single account on a single network, we want to supercharge your chat experience with AI, snippets, good search, labels, advanced notification options, and much more.

I think it's about connecting people on 14 different chat networks not a single user on 14 networks?

> feel a little exhausted just thinking about needing to be on 14 different chat networks.

You do not need to be on all 14 to find Beeper useful! Even if you only use a few you might still want them to be together in a single app. As to why you might be on several different chat networks, you might have different friend or family circles that use different chat networks and may have failed to convinced them to move to a single one or, like me, may think it is a bad use of time to even attempt to convince them to. I'm using Beeper for WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and Discord and it's great!

I would imagine most people are not using all 14, but some subset. If you have friends and family that are not all on the same services, having a unified inbox to talk to them all without having to remember who you talk to on what is convenient.

It's exhausting having different apps.

I use SMS for talking to friends in the US. I use WhatsApp for talking to most international people. I use Telegram to talk to Australians. I use Line to talk to some people in Asia.

> I feel a little exhausted just thinking about needing to be on 14 different chat networks.

That's the point, the vision is that you should only have to be on Beeper.

And you don't have to convince everyone in your life to switch to The Messenger. You can just have it.

yes and sales and regular users too

linkedin, fb, ig, slacks, google stuff and so on - it adds up quickly

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