

We’re not like Yammer or Chatter, and we don’t want to be - curlep
http://blog.hipchat.com/2011/02/09/were-not-like-yammer-or-chatter-and-we-dont-want-to-be/

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bjonathan
If people are comparing you to Yammer maybe you are pitching to the wrong
audience? When I see your video I'm comparing you to Campire! Are you like
Campfire?

On a side note: I tested you product a couple of months ago for my startup
(campfire was too expensive for our use) and we finally choosed jaconda.im
because they have the gtalk/jabber integration and it was a killer feature for
us! We dont need to have a special tab or install another program. We keep our
current workflow with one more contact in our list. My 2cents

Edit: i wrote basecamp instead of campfire

~~~
curlep
I think you mean 37Signals Campfire. Basecamp is their project management
tool. We're working on XMPP support but it doesn't make group chat easy (or
pretty). It's even more complicated when you're trying to get companies of 60+
people set up.

~~~
bjonathan
You are right thank you :)

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paulitex
This may be so, but your homepage is strikingly similar to Yammer's... (above
the fold)

.edit 1) <http://www.hipchat.com/> 2) <https://www.yammer.com/>

~~~
tptacek
And both of them look pretty close to one of the SaaS themes.

This is not one of my favorite critiques of startups. If you're selling to
businesses, the only thing that matters is that you look competent. So what if
there's an idiom people are falling into with their websites? That's a good
thing; one less thing to worry about.

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ldayley
I met one of the founders at a Twilio event not long ago, and when he told me
about his product the first thing I said was "So it's kinda like Yammer?"

At least they are starting to address this marketing problem directly.

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warfangle
So, you're like IRC with embeddable images?

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jbellis
... and large-paste support.

... and backlog replay when you go offline.

... and searchable history.

... and (like most IRC clients, but unlike Campfire) built-in notification
support.

You can get some of these with IRC, if you have a server to run bip on or
leave irssi running on, but it's worth having an integrated package that Just
Works.

(Hipchat: you're welcome for the endorsement, now how about that IRC gateway?
[http://help.hipchat.com/hipchat/topics/irc_compatibility?fro...](http://help.hipchat.com/hipchat/topics/irc_compatibility?from_gsfn=true)
:)

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petercooper
So a bit like <http://talkerapp.com/>? (the UI is along similar lines, though
there are only so many ways to cut a chatroom, I guess!) Talker has some
interesting Ruby-based plugin support as well, though I found it too expensive
to use long-term.

~~~
rs
Except I think one of their USPs is that they have a desktop app

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oomkiller
Please dump Adobe AIR as soon as you can and make native apps, I (and most
likely others) hate AIR apps. That's one of my biggest complaints with Yammer
is their desktop app. If you don't want to be like Yammer don't use AIR ;)

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narkee
So, you're like AIM/MSN Messenger/Yahoo Messenger/Google Talk/ICQ...?

~~~
curlep
Except we actually do group chat well. We designed it specifically for
companies and teams.

~~~
sfphotoarts
after watching the video I don't see anything you do that google chat doesn't
and quite a lot of the reverse. I wish you all the best but the reason you're
having difficulty in differentiation perception is because the products are
all very similar.

Having build a chat system, the real problems don't start until you have
scale. I'd hate to be using this in a real work environment only to have it
fall over when there's a lot of users. Chat is the only time I've ever had to
write Erlang code.

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sachinag
Campfire?

~~~
powdahound
[Repost from our blog comments]

We're definitely competing with Campfire. They were one of the first tools to
focus on providing group chat to businesses but unfortunately didn't go much
further. It's only group chat and it's only in the browser. We have desktop
applications with real popup notifications, one-to-one chat support and
voice/video calling. HipChat is a tool you use all day and love, not a
barebones group chat site you run alongside AIM.

A more in depth feature comparison is here: <http://www.hipchat.com/compare>

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malloreon
Convore?

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ahoyhere
The design of your chat stream looks like an almost direct rip off of
Campfire. If you want people to believe you're doing something different, you
have to make it so your product isn't confused with the competition with a
glance.

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Charuru
Why are you charging so much money?

Convore is free.

~~~
powdahound
So that we have a successful business. This is a tool for business
productivity. It helps companies be more productive and they have no problem
paying for it. In fact, they all say we should charge more. :)

