
Formal – Interruption free communication - gkr
https://www.formalapp.com
======
chrissnell
The non-immediacy of messaging was one of the things I loved so much about
FidoNet. A few times a day, your node (BBS) would dial into a hub server
somewhere (sometimes over a long distance phone call) and download the mail
bundle. The more messages you got, the longer it would take, so there was
always some excitement when the bundle was large. You'd read your mail with
care--after all, you might get 2-3 private messages a day--and responded with
care. Normally, you'd just let your messages get delivered during the next
daily mail call but if you had something important to send, you could initiate
one manually. If you were sending internationally and didn't mind spending a
little coin, it was fun to mark your message as "direct" and watch your node
dial up the recipient's node across the pond or the world.

It was remarkable technology for the savvy home computer user in 1989.

~~~
cknoxrun
When I was 12 I was the hub for FidoNet mail in my smallish town. I was
tweaking the settings before heading on vacation. We left the next morning,
and returned a week later. We came home to an official notice from the police
to contact them immediately. My parents did, and pretty soon 2 police officers
showed up at our door.

They wanted to know who had been "hacking" from the second line in the house.
It turns out I forgot to enter the area code for the FidoNet long distance
number, and some poor souls had been getting a phone call at 3am with "strange
noises", which auto-dialed every minute for 3 hours straight.

The police had disconnected the line, and I had to spend an hour explaining to
the police officers what a BBS is, and what FidoNet is. I remember trying to
draw a diagram, but it was in vain. In the end they just left confused,
reconnected the line and I promised to be more careful in future.

~~~
scottm01
I had a similar experience as a kid. We had a second phone line as my parents
were both occasionally on call. Because they were just on call and the phone
company charged extra, we didn't have the 'tone dialing' feature on the line.
When they weren't on call, I was able to use that line for BBS's and
Compuserve.

It turns out that at least for US-Robotics pulse dialing is not an exact
science. The BBS I used most frequently was often busy so I would turn the
modem volume down and just wait for it to eventually connect.

One day my parents got a call from the police who had gotten complaints of
persistent prank phone calls late at night. I realized the problem and that I
had to admit to staying up way past my bedtime online, I don't recall what the
police threatened but I was definitely scared. I gave them a list of the top
few BBS #s I called, and one of them was one digit off.

I got off pretty easy, I think I just paid for 'tone dialing' on that line
going forward.

~~~
chrissnell
Tone dialing was such a crack-up. My grandmother refused to pay for it and it
was always such a pain in the ass placing calls from her house. What was so
funny is that the phone company had already transitioned to digital switches
so somebody actually had to configure that line to intentionally not interpret
the DTMF. If you didn't pay the $3 or whatever a month for tone service, they
would have to create a burden for you.

------
avindroth
I don't know if this is possible, but I would love this as a layer above
existing messaging platforms.

For instance, I just want my iPhone to batch my notifications until a certain
time, without me having to worry about becoming distracted.

I want just 20-30 minutes of unhindered communication (real-time as well), and
then go back to the batch-mode.

I am currently doing this with "Cellular Data Off", but it's a bit annoying
when I want to listen to music without being distracted. I want the data, but
not the notifications. Right now, as a time-consuming hack, I manually turn
off all messaging notifications.

A very important aspect of life, and a step in the right direction. But does
not seem like a worthy replacement just yet.

~~~
anExcitedBeast
In Android, you can disable App notifications. That may accomplish what you're
looking for.

~~~
gcr
You can do that on iOS also. It's pretty fine-grained. The settings range from
"no activity" (useful for Facebook) to "icon badge only" to notifications to
"show a modal notification" (useful for my-flight-is-leaving-now airline apps)

------
gavinpc
It's been years since I've pointed out that something doesn't work when
cookies are blocked, since it's at least half of the demos I click on.

But out of curiosity, I just checked for an error message on this (blank)
page:

    
    
        SecurityError: The operation is insecure.
        e.exports.getItem()
    

So... it's a local storage call, which uses the domain's cookie permissions.
That makes more sense (than cookies).

Still, how can a first visit to a site require a _getItem_ call before
displaying anything at all?

Others commenters are saying this is not even a demo, but just a landing page.
Wow. You might be overengineering.

~~~
zyxley
> Still, how can a first visit to a site require a getItem call before
> displaying anything at all?

Something like "the index.html page is empty, and gets populated from other
templates by (insert Javascript framework here)".

There's this weird fetish now for doing literally everything in Javascript
instead of rendering pages server-side ever.

~~~
gavinpc
So make this your storage module:

    
    
      // For a given domain, localStorage uses the same permissions as cookies.  When
      // cookies are blocked, attempts to access localStorage will throw a Security
      // exception.  We do that test once here so that we can safely test for this
      // object everywhere else.
      define(function() {
      	try {
      		var K = '__test', V = 1, s = window.localStorage;
      		if (s) {
      			s.setItem(K, V);
      			if (V == s.getItem(K)) {
      				s.removeItem(K);
      				return s;
      			}
      		}
      	} catch(e) {}
      	
      	return null;
      });
    

I mean, I like javascript too. But whether or not your site is rendered
entirely by javascript, you should be feature testing for localStorage.

And if your site _is_ rendered entirely by javascript,

(1) it's _impossible_ that rendering to a first-time visitor can depend on
something previously stored there.

(2) your site will be hosed by _any_ uncaught error during load

For this to happen on an essentially static page is just laughable.

/rant. Okay, I'm good until 2020.

------
bognition
An async communication protocol already exists in Email. So what makes this
different than email?

~~~
sethammons
While I might not "get it," I never got why you would limit a message to 160
characters either, and those guys seem to be doing ok.

~~~
joopxiv
Actually, they're struggling quite a bit.

~~~
softawre
Who is the They here? Seems like the guys that made the platform and the top
engineers working for them all got rich off of the idea.

~~~
simonswords82
True - but that's all in the past now.

Twitter's overall future is grim...They're either going to properly niche down
and try not to be all things to all men, or die. Just my opinion.

~~~
Senji
Twitter will never be strapped for cash, it's owned by a filthy rich
billionaire.

~~~
simonswords82
There's got to come a time when even the filthiest rich billionaires say
enough is enough, this project is never going to hit a satisfactory ROI.

------
dorian-graph
Related: Slow web movement

[http://jackcheng.com/the-slow-web](http://jackcheng.com/the-slow-web)
[http://theslowweb.com/](http://theslowweb.com/)

------
zachlatta
Is this an actual product? Or just a landing page?

~~~
raimue
I was wondering the same. Why are they giving away the idea before they have
delivered the product?

~~~
dbot
To see if there is interest. I believe HN has a rule that a "Show HN" can't be
just a landing page. This is just a landing page without the "Show HN."

------
samfisher83
Why can't someone just check their email 3 times a day? Wouldn't that
accomplish the same effect?

~~~
theknarf
Why can't people just delete the photos and videos they receive after 10
seconds?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Because that's a ridiculously stupid idea that defeats the very concept of
taking a photo or recording a video.

That, or I am too old already.

------
thewavelength
I see it coming: "Pay five bucks to get your message delivered in just ten
minutes!"

~~~
k__
I raise you: "Pay ten bucks to only get messages delivered to you once a day!"

~~~
NegativeK
Pay fifteen bucks for the message, we'll refund the customer their $10, and
deliver the message RIGHT NOW!

------
rch
How is this better than DND? My messages are there when I feel like looking at
them.

~~~
avindroth
From what I know, you cannot fine-tune your DND. For instance, I want certain
notifications to show up versus not.

I prefer "Cellular Data Off," because there is greater need distance that way.

~~~
rch
Android has a few filters: alarms only, priority notifications, calls/messages
from specific contacts, etc.

I agree that greater flexibility in creating custom rules would be welcome
though.

------
taco_emoji
Flagged for being a landing page for something that doesn't exist.

------
Touche
Nice! This reminds me of an app I worked on many years ago but never finished.
A Twitter clone that only let you post 1 message per day. The idea being that
if you can only post once per day you'll make your posts more thoughtful.

------
posabsolute
I think delivering messages 3 times a day is the wrong approach. There is a
need for synchronous communications, it just should not be chat channels you
are connected to all day long.

One preferable idea would be to use notification channels that would reduce
significantly the noise you receive from your pairs. I speak at length about
the idea here: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/channels-best-way-handle-
inte...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/channels-best-way-handle-internal-
discussions-cedric-dugas)

------
runn1ng
Well, whenever I install a messenger (seems like I am doing this too
frequently last few months, since every group of friends like to use a
completely different messenger), first thing I try is a simple "ping-pong"
messages, that is - "is this working?" \- "yes, it is.", usually even with
seeing the friend face to face.

I cannot imagine these "ping-pong" messages - to even establish if the
messenger is working, that the other person has it installed correctly etc -
would take about a day.

~~~
ErrantX
Is that a problem? Everyone is always in a rush these days :) by its very
nature. If you need this messenger app working "right now" then it won't do
the job for yo

------
Karrot_Kream
Seems like the "watch" feature is what makes this idea interesting. You
receive batched updates for a channel when you're not paying attention to it,
and if both participants in the channel are paying attention, then you receive
real-time messages. You're limited in the number of channels you can pay
attention to.

I don't really see what's stopping Messenger, Slack, et al. for adding a
"work" or "focus" mode that achieves this trivially though.

------
partycoder
You can do this on any e-mail client by just using "offline mode".

Now, I don't like the concept. It opens the possibilities to a world of
excuses and lack of accountability.

------
have_faith
Similar to an idea I've had for a slow messenger.

It talks about threads and "number of tasks you're working on". Is this thing
targeted for use at work? because that seems like the worst use case for the
limitations it outlines.

I imagine it more as a digital snail mail with a digital mailman bringing you
messages once a day. An effort to bring the romanticism of a messenger
bringing you an important message.

------
christophe971
Anyone interested in interruption free messaging should check out WiredIn:
[https://wiredinapp.com](https://wiredinapp.com)

It's an existing product, so you can try it yourself. The biggest difference
is that the interruptions are happening at the same time for the whole team,
therefore increasing the total quiet-time of the company.

------
thefastlane
this looks like a fun project, maybe there could be some use among a small
circle of friends, for example.

that said, i won't speak for what the market will sustain, but in terms of
what we _need_ as a society, i believe we are past the point of needing to
invent new messaging platforms. we have email, we have xmpp,(and we have a
smattering of other pretty good platforms like WhatsApp, though it is not
open) etc. we have mature spam filtering technology built around email, we
have TLS, etc etc . this stuff already works. and when it doesn't, we should
be working together to improve upon them. there's a lot of work to be done
making existing communication more secure, and also things like personal data
warehousing of one's communications, etc. etc.

we are not in need of another app (i don't even know what platforms this will
run on -- linux? probably not.) that does less than what email did 40 years
ago.

------
yumaikas
Is there an actual app here, or is this just a website describing something
that would be nice to have right now?

------
rco8786
Semi-ironic that the very first FAQ is about how to circumvent the main
feature of the service, no?

------
cesnja
On the conceptual level, this seems great, because it removes the expectations
of a timely response from both parties (sender and receiver). However, other
(more immediate) channels will probably get used instead, precisely where this
app would be most valuable.

~~~
Mickydtron
It seems like the "Watch" feature would actually take care of this. If both
people are watching the same chat, they would both get real time
notifications, and could chat in real time. The app limits how many threads
you can be watching, though, trying to force you to actively opt-in to things
that you want to pay attention to because they are directly relevant to what
you are doing right now.

~~~
cesnja
Well, that seems unfortunate. The value I see in this application is its
explicit asynchronous nature which saves you from the burden of checking (or
even thinking about) messages or email. The ability to be unreachable where
the other party knows about it. Because right now, it's considered rude if I
don't manage to reply quickly enough.

------
0xTJ
If this turns out to be useful, I could see a situation in which this could be
very useful. I've always disliked the way in which calls and SMS disrupt
people's actions.

------
nxzero
Why not an app that sends messages when you're not busy?

~~~
Mickydtron
It would be hard to detect the best time to deliver the message. Naive
approaches could get it almost exactly wrong, as one of the times when I
really don't want to be interrupted is when I'm just sitting and reading
something, and not really interacting much. I'm sure there are better ways of
determining if the user isn't focusing on anything, and maybe some of them
would work well as a trigger for delivering messages. That would be pretty
nifty.

~~~
nxzero
Correct, it would be hard, which is why if you we're able to figure it out,
it'd be useful and hard to copy.

------
ape4
I like the idea of this. But it should be an email client.

~~~
peterhartree
I made a Chrome extension for Gmail which includes a timed inbox lockout
feature. You could configure this so that you can only see your inbox at
specific times of day.

[https://inboxwhenready.org/](https://inboxwhenready.org/)

------
jelder
This is just email.

