
Show HN: ClapChat – Instant messaging for HN users - todd3834
http://www.clap.chat/
======
JoeCortopassi
Hey everyone, todd3834 and I have been wanting this for awhile and decided to
just start building it ourselves :-) The hope is it makes HN an even greater
place to find people with similar ambitions so that we can build great things.
This isn't meant to be the next coming of Facebook, it's just a super useful
tool we like and want others to use with us.

Main features we think you'll like: \- frictionless signup. You don't need to
manage another login combo. Works kind of like Medium's signup, but with less
steps \- simple. Button next to comments, easy lookup. We wanted you to not
have to think about it to use it \- backwords compatible. It works with people
that haven't signed up yet

~~~
todd3834
Details on the tech stack: We are using React and friends for the front end
and Programmable Chat by Twilio on the BE
([https://www.twilio.com/chat](https://www.twilio.com/chat))

Happy to go further into details on any of that if interested. We are
considering open sourcing the entire project, is that something people would
be interested in?

~~~
kovacs
Will there be stickers? An SDK for apps to run inside your chat? Social graph
widgets to invite my friends to chat? A pair of glasses that I can use for
hands free HN chat? An Alexa skill for chat? :-P

All kidding aside congrats on your launch!

Look forward to your blog posts (and maybe source) with more detail as this
has been a topic of interest for me off and on over recent years.

------
Daviey
How does this differ from hnchat that was posted back in September, especially
around user auth?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12431724](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12431724)

~~~
JoeCortopassi
The main difference is that this enables private messaging between users,
regardless if they are signed up or not. Next time you're in a thread, you'll
see a button to send a message next to their username. Click, and it will
start a message without you having to leave the page. HNChat on the other hand
seems to be more of a separate place to have conversations as a group. I feel
like there is a place for both, they just solve different problems

------
zaroth
Just a thought on the auto-login functionality...

If I run an intercepting proxy and alter all instances of my username in the
HTML response from HN servers to appear in every way to be logged in as
'dang'.... How would your extension detect the forgery?

~~~
todd3834
Glad you asked! So here is a teaser on how it works: 1. ClapChat gives you a
unique id, the extension posts the id in your profile, ClapChat independently
verifies that your profile contains the correct ID so that we know you really
do own the account, then we double check the ID vs the session that we gave
the id to and we can validate the authorization.

I'm working on a blog post that goes into much further detail and will post
soon.

~~~
JoeCortopassi
Btw, we also plan on open sourcing all this. So everyone will be able to give
feedback and contribute. The hope is it becomes a really useful tool for the
community

------
SonOfLilit
What happens if I want to PM someone but they're still not signed up for
ClauChat?

You should probably also answer this on your page.

~~~
todd3834
We are considering a few things. Our first pass is to use mechanical turk so
that we get the email address from the profile page and send an email with the
message. We want to be sure not to bother people who truly don't want to
participate so we are working on a solution to make sure this doesn't turn
into a way to spam HN users.

~~~
zitterbewegung
Please don't do this I really would want this opt in . If I were you I would
disregard the message .

~~~
todd3834
I'm very sensitive to this issue as a long time HN user I don't want to get
spammed. However, as I was brainstorming this I came to this conclusion: If
you put your email address in your HN profile you are opting in to people
being able to reach you. ClapChat will just be a client for doing that easily
and we will do everything to make sure a bot can't abuse this. For starters,
you have to be authenticated to send a message so we can tell if someone is
abusing the system and spamming people. Secondly, you can unsubscribe from
ClapChat emails so that it will never bother you.

This is something I feel we can strike a balance with, open to any feedback
and ideas people have.

~~~
grzm
I reiterate your parent: please don't do this. Scraping a resource for email
addresses and sending unsolicited email would be understood by a lot of people
as spam. This would be different if they put something like the following in
their profile:

    
    
      clap.chat: myemail@example.com
    

Edit: spelling

~~~
todd3834
> Scrapping a resource for email addresses and sending unsolicited email would
> be understood by a lot of people as spam

We don't even want to dance the line with spam. Thanks for the feedback.

What if when you try to message a user who hasn't signed up and it opens their
profile page and the user can type in the email address manually if it is
available. Then we don't have to pay for mechanical turk and the user is just
using ClapChat as their email client in a way. I'm convinced we can crack this
nut in a way that works and doesn't bother people :)

~~~
grzm
I appreciate the dilemma: you understandably want to limit the friction in
connecting HN members, and one of the means by which you're considering doing
so has historically been abused so people are sensitive to it. I think
'zitterbewegung still has the right idea: it needs to be opt-in.

~~~
foota
I don't see an issue with having a user type in an email address from
someone's profile. Like the parent says in this case they're basically just
using clapchat as their email client. Perhaps they could even set-up an SMTP
gateway such that hn users could receive clapchats from emails sent to them
@clapchat.io or whatever. Then maybe in the email they send have a tasteful
link to also sign-up for clapchat.

Edit: upon thinking about it more, it might be better to randomly generate an
address used for each conversation, to prevent a spammer from sending email to
someone's @clapchat address

~~~
grzm
Perhaps it's useful to approach this from the other side.

Say I want to be able to communicate with HN members via email, so I include
my email address in my profile. clap.chat makes it easier for clap.chat users
to send me email using the email address in my profile, though ideally they
want to clap.chat with me. I don't want to use clap.chat. If I don't want to
use clap.chat but am getting invitations to use clap.chat, the burden to deal
with that is now on me, be it with a filter, or perhaps adding a note to my
profile. Perhaps clap.chat includes a record of people who have opted-out.

All of these methods parallel the behavior and handling of spam. Whether or
not there's daylight between these types of invites and spam depends on one's
perspective.

------
jonbaer
I am not sure I would use this tool on an ongoing / regular basis but for Ask
HN: Who's Hiring this would be nice for instant interviews, just a thought ...

------
qwertyuiop924
...So, unlike HNchat, which was a live chatroom, this is like that PM system
that we all want (so we can have PMs, and so people will stop posting HN
messages that tell you to email them), but still don't have for a variety of
reasons?

I'm sold.

~~~
JoeCortopassi
That's the hope. Make it easy to take the conversation offline and help each
other out :-)

------
Arathorn
Shame this is neither FOSS nor standards-based... Matrix-based HN chat would
be awesome :) (i work on matrix so am probably biased though :D)

~~~
rickycook
they say further up that they will be open sourcing it. my first thought was
the same, but the twillio chat they've used seems super simple, so potentially
matrix was just too heavy for their simple needs at the moment

~~~
todd3834
Hi yes! You are correct. We just wanted to go with the most simple backend
service with the least amount of maintenance that we could use for starters.

~~~
Arathorn
guess we have our work cut out for us on Matrix then :D

~~~
todd3834
I know that I'll be checking it out for more details soon. Thanks for bringing
it to my attention :)

------
akoster
Quite interesting! Any thoughts for an XMPP or IRC bridge (similar to what
Slack provides)?

~~~
todd3834
The primary focus is to get something that works well as a browser extension
but since we plan to open source it there isn't any reason why the community
couldn't add that. If there is demand for it then I'll be happy to work on it
as well.

------
LeanderK
serious question: why is this not open-source? I think serious tools to
communicate in this community should as much open-source as possible.

~~~
todd3834
We plan to open source it once it is opened up to everyone.

~~~
hawaiianbrah
Out of idle curiosity, why wait? Seems that is only delaying any improvements
people might contribute.

~~~
JoeCortopassi
To be honest, we'd just rather have more bugs knocked out before we share. We
take pride in our code just like most people

------
herbst
I am sure someone said this already. But in case if not. That is basically
unreadable with that light gray font

------
gexcolo
Does it have an API?

~~~
todd3834
The front-end code uses an API, I suppose we could make it public. I'll make
note of that, it would be cool to make it completely public.

------
0XAFFE
Is this a refference to claptrap?

~~~
todd3834
It isn't but I wish I could say it was because that would make it much
funnier.

------
ris
I'd reconsider the name - nobody wants to give each other the clap.

------
Arinerron
Android app yet?

~~~
JoeCortopassi
No apps for android or iOS. For right now it's just a browser extension

~~~
staticfish
hit me up if you want help with this. -android dev.

------
DrScump
Some typos:

"Full Integration with you (sic) HN Account"

same section, last sentence: "Your (sic) welcome."

~~~
todd3834
Thanks! fixed typos :)

