Show HN: Kwak, a real-time discussion platform | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Kwak, a real-time discussion platform

kwak.io

33 pointsvhf25 comments

> "real-time discussion platform"

So... it's chat?

Chat is more of a generic term. The discussions we refer to are content based (right now centered around one hashtag or a Tweet). We will have other contents soon (hint: original content).

Hi, we wanted to show you a little something, so here it is.

We suggest you also read the manifesto[0] we wrote, telling more about our mission on this project.

[0] https://kwak.io/blog

In my opinion you could have chosen a far better moment to launch, and a far better launch than the current. Don't expect your potential users to start digging for info for themselves (launch content) on a product they don't know and which on first sight is only irc (launch timing: better launched a bit later when you had a killer feature).

To me it is like you are introducing the iphone1 with the same famous talk by jobs, but stopping just before the it is one device killer punch line. Instead you are promisingbthat the 3 devices will become one in the future, with a lot less credit than Apple had at the time.

Lets end with saying good luck. I hope to see a subsequent announcement one day which reaches the FP, telling us you made it :).

I totally get your point. Nearly everyone we talked to said "Great idea". We are simply applying the MVP principle, hopefully we'll grow from there :)

This looks exactly like Shout[1]. This seems to be an IRC channel, and you have a web interface (using Shout) hosted on your domain, with some of Shout's features removed so that people can't use it to connect to other IRC servers. And you aren't giving any credit to Shout.

*EDIT: My apologies, I totally jumped the gun there. I didn't see the "?" at the bottom, which states that that's exactly what this is. I still think that you could give a little more credit to them, though. In my opinion, this is more than just "based" on Shout, as your credits say.

[1]:http://shout-irc.com/

shout is MIT opensource, we ack the use of the looknfeel (see our about). Kwak is by no mean IRC backed, it's our own dev work based on Meteor.

The interface will change eventually to support all the features that we intend.

We first started by mapping IRC features and for that shout is super convenient .. but it is just the start ;)

Shout is MIT, so they don't need to give any credit.

As I chat with one of the founders, If I had to describe the service I would write something like:

"kwak.io: a discussion-based (channels), real-time (chat) platform (server)"

which forme it sounds like: server + chat + channels === 'IRC'

Nowdays we have plenty of modern alternatives to good-old IRC: Slack, Gitter, Hipchat. So I asked where does kwak.io fits in?

For me it's a fun but unclear experiment. According to their manifesto (https://medium.com/@kwak.io/kwak-s-manifesto-14c69104e70) I get the "IRC communication style" part, but I'm not totally clear how will they achieve the "mixed with modern social features" part.

Very nice start! Dope logo.

Good idea to go MVP and get it out in the world and get some learning going. Of course the down side to MVCs is the user doesn't know it's MVC — some comments might reflect that ;)

Looking forward to seeing where you take this IRC-esq revival!

I like the name. A platform to leave our 'kwakjes'. And in real-time.

For those who might be wondering, it's a Dutch word for 'ejaculate'.

Uh no not really. It means quack or "to slam down", or something. But that's not the common meaning. Are you flemish? Don't know whether it might have extra meanings there.

You might not be aware of it but it is indeed a common usage in both Dutch and Flemish, especially in the diminutive.

Phemist's tongue-in-cheek remark drew attention to it to suggest that the name might not be well chosen for those parts of the world.

See sense 2.2 here: http://www.vandale.nl/opzoeken?pattern=kwak&lang=nn

Or just google it (nsfw).

Very nice. The UI feels slightly slower (more sluggish) than web IRC chats. The ability to enable audio on messages or @mentions (in settings) is a good addition. But how does kwak want/expect people to use this? www.kwak.io just has 4 hashtags and jumps me straight into a chatroom. Either I am missing something or there's nothing more to this "Show HN" than literally showing it?

We haven't dig too much into optimization yet, it's _almost_ vanilla Meteor with MongoDB. The hashtags are created by the users, and they automatically rank based on activity, we will have many more interesting ranking algorithms to come.

Where did this sudden interest in reinventing IRC come from? It seems we get one of these every day now.

It seems like this is, in fact, just a skinned IRC and not a reimplementation.

What makes you think it's skinned IRC?

- you can't change nick

- you can go full anonymous

- Hashtags (or channels if you like) are automatically ranked)

- you can post media

- ...

This is IRC. Also the interface is the same of the Shout IRC client: http://shout-irc.com/

That said, I've read the manifesto and I liked the idea. This has my support.

Sooo, a Gitter clone?

More of a Slack for the rest of us. Please have a look at our manifesto: https://kwak.io/blog

nice logo finally!

With a Meteor backend.

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