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Comment by 3princip | Hacker News Reader

Lot's of hype (IMO) around Slack, but lot's of money thrown at them so I kept thinking that I'm missing something! Just being skeptical as usual. The other day an invitation arrives to use Slack. Great! Let's see it, this killer feature or killer combination of features. What have these smart people come up with that hasn't been done countless times in the same space to make them so successful?

It's literally nothing. I can't believe that's the product.

Anyway, on top of a completely underwhelming experience comes this news. I can't see why a company would use them, to be honest. But then I haven't built a billion dollar company, so not many people will be asking me for an opinion.

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You could do something similar with an IRC server and bots with webhooks... Just the same, they did do this, and offer a web based interface that people are more comfortable with (no need for an irc client), and does more than IRC clients do.

IT's not that anyone else couldn't do this, it's that they've done it relatively well.

Absolutely. It's just so much better than any IRC client. People looked at the iPhone and said "but all of this technology already existed!" That isn't the point. It had never been put together in a user-friendly way.

Slack hasn't invented anything new, but the entire product is a delight to use.

I think a key differentiation with Slack is their design, and that they provide clients for both mobile, web and desktop. I can't think of another product that has done this well.

It fills a necessary gap on large and remote teams. Email is too cumbersome, verbal communication isn't always practical or possible, nothing does group chats very well.

And it's not hipchat (or bought by Atlassian). Let's not forget that.

Can I ask why that would be a problem? You can actually host HipChat yourself (behind your own firewall), which seems like a great asset against this kind of breach.

It's the same criticism people had for Dropbox or the first iPhone: there's nothing new. The key is that it's very well packaged with a focus on UX (especially on mobile) and it requires extremely little setup effort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus

Neat story, but I don't see the analogy. OP says he/she doesn't see any innovation, not "this innovation is obvious". At least tell us an egg or two that Slack cleverly stands on end.

Now it occurs to me I may have been making a distinction (about the nature of innovation) where there arguably isn't one. Still, I think it's fair to ask exactly what Slack is doing right. If there is a real innovation, someone should be able to tell us (there've been some good responses); otherwise it's just lucky network effects or a fad.

I would say that their ux is actually really good. I'd go so far as to say they have one of the best on boarding experiences I've ever seen. But that's just my opinion.

If you use Slack for a week you can't go back. I would switch back to an IRC client for a few team members who would not switch and was filled with rage every time I had to use the old client. :)

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