
Convore (YC W11) Wants To Be The Easiest Group Communication App Yet - ericflo
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/09/convore-wants-to-be-the-easiest-group-communication-app-yet/
======
alttab
I've seen some amazing, incredible collaboration tools come out of the web.

The main issue isn't the technology or the software or the CSS they use - but
the fact that a majority of people _don't know how to communicate._ I say fix
that first.

Also, the problem isn't being able to create groups or include or invite
people as much as it is _getting people to consistently use it to make it
meaningful_. My company has a wiki where we convey information, but guess how
much information from the one-off conversations we have ends up there?

~~~
jberryman
I would say the problem with your company wiki _is_ a problem of technology. A
wiki requires that people become curators That takes a lot of energy, thought,
and intention.

I think there is huge room for technology to solve these kinds of problems,
and we've only scratched the surface.

~~~
alttab
I think I understand what you are trying to say -- that the wiki is a bad
technology solution to the problem. Its because the wiki isn't where the
decisions are _happening._

However, in most small businesses (and lets face it, theres more SMB then
there is large or enterprise customers hands down) the decisions aren't made
on a wiki, or even e-mail for that matter. In a company size of 60-70 or less
its still way easier just to walk over to their desk and talk it out. Who
remembers hearing a conversation ending with "don't forget to put this on the
wiki?" This sentiment being true in my own workplace, the wiki is still
considered the de-facto documentation on a subject (guess how many pages are
up-to-date).

I believe any successful business collaboration tool will fully grasp
facilitating interaction in a way that meetings or quick one-on-one's can't.
Having technology outpace human interaction when it is humans that ultimately
have to fully articulate themselves I think is the largest obstacle.

TL;DR - I think I agree with you, but the real solution is still difficult to
solve with technology alone.

------
simonw
I've been hanging out on Convore for a few weeks and they're definitely on to
something - it's entirely replaced Twitter as my online water cooler.

In a way it's similar to IRC, but the ability to create new topics which have
their own chatroom-style thread (while still being alerted to conversations
elsewhere) means you can duck out and come back again a few days later and
pick up the same conversation.

~~~
zx76
I agree the new features are really useful but would also argue that there is
an Evaporative Cooling Effect ([http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-
sundays-2-the-...](http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-
sundays-2-the-evaporative-cooling-effect/)) taking place - there is hardly any
noise on Convore at present. Even with a carefully maintained follow list on
twitter I still get so much noise in my stream that I no longer check it
regularly.

~~~
old-gregg
We've been on convore for a few weeks and for certain things it is starting to
replace HN for me. There's generally enough high-quality HN-caliber folks to
have a quick and intelligent discussion about MongoDB on AWS or whatever,
something I always wanted #startups on IRC to be.

Careful though: could be addictive as hell. ;)

~~~
saurik
Is this just because it was announced here, and is that likely to continue?
One of the key problems with IRC is that in a world where anyone can
participate, the cool places to go are the places everyone wants to be, which
means that you need advanced moderation mechanisms, which in the IRC ecosystem
translates to numerous channel and user modes, bots for automated moderation,
and network-wide services for overall control. I don't see Convore being well
positioned on any of these fronts.

------
simonista
Looks very cool. Looks like there's a Hacker News group, for those that are
interested: <https://convore.com/hacker-news/>

------
jonpaul
It looks beautiful. But I must be missing something... what problem does it
solve that forums or Twitter don't solve? Or how does it do it better? I just
signed up and I'm not seeing the utility. I'm asking this sincerely.

~~~
mwhooker
with twitter I feel like I'm confined to my "online social circle". Convore
seems to get a better mix of people together, oriented around a topic.

------
peregrine
This is really cool but feels a lot like Wave and I cannot help but feel the
goal of Convore is to replace it. More power to them I know several people
that loved it(students mostly) and miss it now that its gone.

------
tptacek
I'm sort of idly hanging out on <https://convore.com/appsec/> now, if anyone
has appsec questions; happy to field them.

------
swanson
So did Leah Culver's other web-chat project (<http://leafychat.com/>) get
rolled into this?

It looks interesting, I wonder if these type of projects will eventually
replace IRC. I could definitely see popular open source projects using this
over IRC, especially if they have features like snippet embedding.

~~~
kingkilr
Nope leafy chat was/is an entirely separate project (I was one of the devs), I
don't doubt some of the UI/whatever for convore was inspired by it though.

~~~
leahculver
Yes, Leafy Chat was a totally separate project built by myself, Alex Gaynor,
and Chris Wanstrath for the Django Dash a couple years ago. Leafy Chat was a
pure web IRC client. Convore is inspired by IRC but not based on the protocol
and functions a bit differently. For example, Convore has the concept of
topics, which is not in IRC.

~~~
axod
IRC Topics:

    
    
      #firefox
      #firefox-dev
      #firefox-users

~~~
true_religion
Those are channels and more like Convore Groups.

A topic is more like a forum topic/thread.

~~~
saurik
I would say a convore group is more like an IRC network, and a convore topic
is more like an IRC channel.

------
tomjen3
This seems useful, but there is no way to see what it does different than all
of the other chat apps on the front page.

So I guess I will skip signing up for now.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
It multiplexes rooms over groups. So, you join a group, and then people within
that group create a "topic". Basically, it is like a realtime BBS with
"starring", @replies, and "unread" tracking.

------
kingkilr
Congrats to Convore on the launch, I've been using it almost since its
inception and it's become a staple of my communication platforms.

------
ryanb
The YC W11 class has been using Convore nonstop. It's pretty amazing.

~~~
wildmXranat
And that explains some of the comments I saw about this service. I don't mean
to belittle their efforts or YC linked developers, but hearing opinions from
developers and users from the inside has somewhat lost its meaning.

Keeping the debate honest and true is key when selling a product by echoing
each others consensus.

In fact, I would like to hear a polarized and detailed opposite opinion ( if
it exists ) of any service that is summarized as 'amazing'. Just saying.

~~~
ryanb
I disagree. I think it's impressive that they were able to get such a large
part of our YC class hooked on using their product, especially since everyone
is super busy working on their own startup.

------
bretthellman
Fun design. Though, doesn't Facebook groups make group conversations like this
a lot easier as using FB groups does not require having another tab open?
Seems like FB has the social groups nailed. Very curious to hear convore's
thoughts... And no, I don't work for FB.

------
_grrr
I wonder how they will monetize this? A white-label chat platform for websites
that want a chat facility would be one option (StackOverflow rolled out chat
recently, but this would have been a good candidate for them). Branded in-
house chat for corporates would be another, especially those with distributed
project teams that want to communicate around a project. I like the fact that
the chat sessions are persistent and revolve around a topic - this makes them
very useful in a project environment.

~~~
acgourley
At first glance I would think they need to do the same thing Meebo does: heavy
branding. But there is a chance they can monetize sufficient by hosting group
chat for existing communities that don't want to build the feature, or even
for enterprise.

------
daniel_levine
I've been using Convore for a bit over a week and it's great so far! Keep it
up guys

------
kin
Congrats to Convore!

My initial impression of the site is great. Immediately I was able to jump
into the Hacker News group and switch between various topics seamlessly and
chat.

I'm excited to be using this for small projects. Create a group and not just
chat in one room but switch off between several topics in one group. Just the
idea of that I can imagine would make collaboration on projects so much more
organized. Great job guys!

------
agaton
I think this is a great idea. Combining the best features of traditional
online forums with topic based threads and the easyness of IM communication.
Instead of defining the chat by the people in it, Convore define it by the
threads topic. Definitely an interesting take on group IM/chat. Also - easy to
use, clean design. Me like.

------
cj
Seems a bit like the first version of Gravity (now convo.io) from the ex-
myspace crew, plus chat.

------
krambs
This is a fantastic product. Definitely try it out.

------
rkudeshi
Does it support file uploads, like Campfire?

~~~
ericflo
Not yet. Right now we're still in "minimum viable product" mode, and
additionally file uploads start to be cost prohibitive on a free product like
ours. That said, we're not opposed to adding this in the future, it's just a
matter of when the time is right and how we can best integrate it.

------
u_fail
I'll leave my feedback here, but unfortunatley I think they took forums and
actually made the problem worse.

I joined the convore.com/feedback group, intending to leave feedback , but
theres just no good way to see if what i want to say in an existing topic, and
too many topics to view. Shouldn't be that much work for me to tell you about
the product. Another problem is overload, it might just be me.. but topics and
conversations are moving so fast, its overwhelming, and its like chore by
itself.

------
RaRic
Nice app! I'm not a designer, but I think some of the buttons look disabled.
In particular, the "Mark group as read" has gray text on gray background with
very little contrast.

------
icey
Looks awesome, well done!

I created an entrepreneurship group here to test it out:
<https://convore.com/entrepreneurship/>

------
kevingao1
Congrats guys - huge!

------
piranha
We did small dumb console reader: <https://github.com/foobarbuzz/convoread> :)

------
widgetycrank
I don't if it's me but the position:fixed layout makes the page scroll
noticeably laggy. I'm using Chrome on a 2.0GHz Mac btw.

------
bonaldi
This would be great for use inside our company, but only if it's on the Yammer
model where everything is company-private. Don't want staff to have to go
through hundreds of external groups, just want them to see ours.

If Convore is like IRC, what we need is a private IRC server. Is there any
service like that? (Campfire ain't it)

------
madewulf
I am currently viewing [https://convore.com/django-community/there-arent-
enough-djan...](https://convore.com/django-community/there-arent-enough-
django-events/) but it keeps reloading the page from time to time,
interrupting my current reading... in both Safari and Chrome

------
cactopi
sounds like a meat-eating hooker

------
edanm
Congrats - this looks very impressive.

One tiny nitpick - on the "discover" page, the first item on the left-side
menu is "your friends groups", and it should be "your friend _s'_ groups".

------
kmfrk
Is it me, or do I have to go to the frontpage to be able to sign up? Silly if
that is the case, but I'm probably missing something.

------
devin
I don't find Convore interesting. Give me IRC over this garbage any day of the
week.

Flowdock, Convore, Chatterous, and on, and on. The same idea as IRC but less
accessible.

I hate to be so glib but, if you can't script it, who cares?

------
mtw
it throws me an error upon connecting with Facebook connect

------
zwadia
Good stuff Team Convore!

That being said, I think Convore will face serious competition from Twitter in
the very near future.

@ev will be launching Twitter Events very shortly which is the most charming
and best implemented part of Convore.

Full disclosure: I am biased because my gig, @SecretSocial, will be better
than Convore... <http://secretsocial.com>

