

Kivo (YC S13) Uses Git to Make Collaborating on Documents Easier - zefi
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/05/kivo-uses-git-to-make-collaborating-on-documents-easier-starting-with-powerpoint/

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minor_nitwit
Wasn't this problem already solved by Sharepoint and SVN? If I do a diff from
SVN at work, it automatically brings up the compare documents screen in Word.

If your company is of any decent size you have a server of your own, so what's
the advantage of putting the repository on Kivo?

Microsoft is always going to have an edge over anyone when it comes to
Microsoft Office documents, so even if some of this idea becomes successful, I
don't see how it stays out of office for long.

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djtriptych
Please let me borrow your time machine.

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minor_nitwit
Just install Tortoise SVN. Create a repository on your shared server, and then
add a folder on your local machine to the repository. When you commit a file,
you'll have a diff option, as well as locks and everything else you get.

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MarcScott
I work in education, so I looked at this with interest (PowerPoint is a
teacher's staple, although I personally prefer Reveal.js).

I think a closer model to GitHub and the Windows app would be more useful to
me. The Github Windows app is able to pick up differences in Word documents
without any trouble already (although probably just text changes).

When working on a project, we normally have multiple files in a directory. A
PowerPoint or two, a couple of Word docs and maybe an Excel file. A standalone
app, rather than a PowerPoint plugin, would be able to look for all changes in
the directory such as the addition of image files.

More importantly I would like to see pull requests. I like to share my
resources with other educators, that aren't part of my 'team'. It would be
nice if they could make improvements to my resources and then submit a pull
request, so I could review what they've done and then accept it.

Just my thoughts. I've long thought we need a GitHub for teachers, but I don't
have the skills to implement this yet.

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ahtomski
You should check out this
[http://www.teachhub.meliordevelopment.com/](http://www.teachhub.meliordevelopment.com/).
We built it in a weekend exploring exactly that problem in schools.

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spion
Interesting. We applied with a very similar concept (except starting with Word
instead of PowerPoint and with more focus on email and tasks doable on mobile
devices) in winter 2012 and got immediately rejected. Our pitch was probably
not good enough...

We're working without YC's help anyway and hoping to launch soon :)

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omegant
I´m working from the air mac but I´ll give it a shot when I get home. This is
exactly one of the ideas that I have been wondering with my friends (don´t
worry we are with another project right now), git-like collaborative editing,
but more centered on docs, as we where working on documentation. Working with
several comments and version on the same document is a pain!, good luck with
this. Some questions: -is there a version map? like a facebook timeline but
with all the lines of the branches-users. Where I can see the last commits by
user, but also the diff on a slide basis.

-is there a project owner, the one that accepts commits (I suppose there is one)

-I really like sigma´s idea. Be able to split between visual updates and content updates (but not a priority)

-how do you express-print the diff function on a slide? have you considered about a toogle button, or a slider to change between different versions of the different branches?.

-Is the document´s owner able to merge a single slide from a branch(user) that he likes, and then at the next slide choose from another branch(user)?

-How do you manage annotations?

I´ll defenitely check it when I´ll get home, there is a big oportunity here.
Personally we have tried with google docs, office 365, and the like, they just
don´t work. On a side note if you happen to need distribution for SaaS on a IT
basis and want to be able to control how people uses your product (and charge
accordingly), just contact us at apparly.com .

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jlgreco
Kivo was previously discussed here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6023423](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6023423)

I think it's an idea with a lot of potential, if executed correctly. Great to
see they're YC S13!

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chrisgd
I can immediately see use for this product. As a former investment banker, the
majority of your time is spent in powerpoint sending different documents back
and forth between analyst, associate and VP. Track changes always worked fine
in word for the majority of my purposes. I imagine there are a number of
investment banks, both bulge bracket and otherwise that could benefit from
this.

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charleyma
Definitely seconding a clear use-case for bankers, I've done basic versions of
git repo doc sharing;

however the primary concern that I always have with any sort of version
control programs is the fact that the documents must be completely internal
and within our firewall, any sort of external hosting is usually not secure
enough, and most solutions seem to lack easy implementation due to the speed
of technology at large banks.

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zefi
We will be offering self hosted deployments behind the firewall. All we need
is a Git server and you're away. Would be good to chat more, I'm zefi@kivo.com

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Oculus
I remember either Asana, Stripe, or Quora suggesting to build a similar
program to help your application when applying. I always thought it was a
super cool idea, but never got around to building one.

I'll try and find a link later today.

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6thSigma
How does merging work? It didn't cover that in the video.

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pea
Hey 6thSigma! I'm Leo, CTO @ Kivo:

There are two things you'd merge: changes to the whole presentation (i.e. new
slides), and multiple changes to the same slide. In the first instance, we
slot together the slides and alert the user. In the latter instance (if you
sync a change and I sync a change to a single slide), they will both appear
chronologically in the list. It is up to the user to merge these versions
together.

Automatic merging works well with code because you can move locations of
functions and -- to some extent -- chunks of code (although git usually will
require some merge resolution); as we are merging something (a slide) which,
unlike code, has to appear a certain way visually, this approach doesn't make
much sense. Auto-merging together two slides with different content would not
have a desirable result. I'd love to hear your ideas on what you think the
best UX for this is.

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6thSigma
Yeah, I get what you're saying. This is what I was thinking:

Say Person A and Person B are working on a slide that has the text "Hello
World" centered on a white background.

Person A makes a change to the slide by changing the background to red and
moving the text box up 10 pixels.

Person B makes a change to the slide by changing the text to "Hello World!"

They both sync at the same time.

Ideally, Kivo would be able to differentiate the changes as non-conflicting.
For some reason I doubt Microsoft's Powerpoint API allows you to differentiate
between those changes, however. :)

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pea
Yeah that would totally make sense. There is quite a lot to work with in the
OpenXML library (as PP documents are essentially just XML in a zip file). If
you could segregate regions of a slide and delegate ownership that could be a
reality; I guess the UX problem is having different behavior from similar
actions (I.e., how do I know when it's going to merge or if I have to do it
myself?). We were thinking the best way would be some document-based version
of a 3-way-diff (TortoiseHG have a good one on windows). Regarding the PP COM
API, you want to stay away from it as much as possible and stick to
proprietary XML serialization..! Cheers for your feedback, and ping me an
email whenever: leo@kivo.com

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ajaymehta
Absolutely awesome product, congrats on the launch!

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jaksmit
it should probably detect that I'm on a Mac and not direct me to download a
.exe file...

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zefi
sorry about that, we will do. There's a mac sign up link in the top bar to add
to be added the mac beta.

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kamweti
off topic but there is a brand mix-up here, did Cove
[http://getcove.com/](http://getcove.com/) rebrand to kivo?

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zefi
wow! great spot. We used to be called Verse(.io) and wanted to change to a
.com. Cove was one of our options but we didn't go with it in the end. Need to
add a redirect. How did you find the url?

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kamweti
it was unanticipated, I was happily doing a google search for the first guy in
your testimonials and it came up

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zefi
awesome. thanks again for reminding us!

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vladaionescu
Nice!

