Rabblr

Consumer and social

website chat overlay

SHOW HN2012

72points
43comments
#334of 1,677 in 2012
Top 20%of 2012 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

3 positive, 13 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 11 critical, out of 30 comments about the project. Thread score -0.25.

Idea: 2 for, 7 againstExecution: 1 for, 4 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Cool idea and fascinating concept

    From 3 comments
    • This is actually tremendously fascinating, and has a lot of potential. It is one of the coolest things I've ever seen on HN. 10 other HN users are on it now. (Tried nytimes.com,…
      crazygringo on HN
    • What I've always wanted is HN with a chatroom attached to each submission instead of a comments page. That would be fun.
      revorad on HN
    • At first, my thoughts were wow, that's simple and potentially really powerful. Then I opened it up.. and even on HN, the chat was a hard to follow trail of throw away comments.…
      dazbradbury on HN

Objections

  • Chicken and egg problem; needs many users to be useful

    From 3 comments
    • This has been tried a dozen times. The chicken and egg problem is especially hard in real time. And in general, chat is dead. It's boring. The web has more to offer than it did…
      bdr on HN
    • I like this idea, but here's a word of warning: ICQ actually had software that did this about a hundred years ago. It was a stand alone app you would download, and you could chat…
      lars on HN
    • +1 ...more importantly, it's probably the only way to beat the chicken/egg problem mentioned above.
      dlf on HN
  • Anonymous chat degenerates into trolling and spam

    From 2 comments
    • Chat is NOT dead. See campfire for example which even is a quite new chat tool. In fact, entire companies (including my own) are using chat for all their internal communication…
      jachwe on HN
    • This was interesting and pretty cool MVP. I provided a whole bunch of suggestions. However it wasn't long before it degenerated into a cesspool. I really don't understand how…
      vlod on HN
  • Chat is hard to follow and moderate

    From 2 comments
    • At first, my thoughts were wow, that's simple and potentially really powerful. Then I opened it up.. and even on HN, the chat was a hard to follow trail of throw away comments.…
      dazbradbury on HN
    • This is actually tremendously fascinating, and has a lot of potential. It is one of the coolest things I've ever seen on HN. 10 other HN users are on it now. (Tried nytimes.com,…
      crazygringo on HN
  • Buggy on some browsers and sites, such as IE9 layout issues

    From 2 comments
    • On the latest chrome stable. I've gotten multiple errors trying to do this. Error: TypeError: Cannot call method 'track' of undefined Error: Error: INVALID_STATE_ERR Error: You…
      lsiebert on HN
    • It seems to be problematic on IE9 on Win 7. The chat window is left at the bottom of the page, and if I scroll up, the chat window remains at the bottom of the page. Thus,…
      codedivine on HN

Requests

  • Chat history so newcomers can see earlier messages

    From 2 comments
    • This is actually tremendously fascinating, and has a lot of potential. It is one of the coolest things I've ever seen on HN. 10 other HN users are on it now. (Tried nytimes.com,…
      crazygringo on HN
    • chat history would be good.. my chat stopped dead.. would like to go back and review what's said. Bookmarklet can display how many people online and color-coded for activity level.
      adrianwaj on HN
  • Stay up while navigating within the same domain

    From 1 comment
    • .. and it would be very convenient if it could stay up while on the same domain (e.g., a hidden top-level iframe?).
      ghayes on HN
  • Flood protection and adjustable opacity

    From 1 comment
    • I think this is actually a pretty cool idea, but for it to be successful - 1) The app is a little rough around the edges... needs at the least a method for "flood protection." 2)…
      mkelley on HN
  • Better username handling and reserved names

    From 3 comments
    • Feedback: don't allow usernames "root", "admin", "administrator", et cetera.
      danielamitay on HN
    • On the latest chrome stable. I've gotten multiple errors trying to do this. Error: TypeError: Cannot call method 'track' of undefined Error: Error: INVALID_STATE_ERR Error: You…
      lsiebert on HN
    • just fyi, wait until your logged in, then you can change your username by clicking it.
      lsiebert on HN

Questions

  • How does it work and what technologies were used

    From 2 comments
    • Very cool. How does it work?
      sirch on HN
    • This looks great! Awesome job. Would love to read more about which technologies you used to build it.
      DanielRibeiro on HN
  • Would it work over https

    From 1 comment
    • On the latest chrome stable. I've gotten multiple errors trying to do this. Error: TypeError: Cannot call method 'track' of undefined Error: Error: INVALID_STATE_ERR Error: You…
      lsiebert on HN

Alternatives named

  • Envolve (envo.lv)

    From 2 comments
    • I remember a very similar startup that was doing more or less the same thing which has been a very popular in HN and some other websites, I just could not recall the name. Anyone…
      alpb on HN
    • Founder of Envolve here; yes, we did build a version of Envolve for HN called envo.lv It was always intended to be a marketing gimmick. The critical mass required to sustain good…
      jamest on HN
  • Olark

    From 2 comments
    • Chat is NOT dead. See campfire for example which even is a quite new chat tool. In fact, entire companies (including my own) are using chat for all their internal communication…
      jachwe on HN
    • Perhaps you could adapt this to become an Olark competitor.. it's too expensive in my view.. for users to speak with site admins.
      adrianwaj on HN
  • Bonfire

    From 1 comment
    • Nice. Very similar idea to http://bonfire.im which is only for use at Twitter.com. Would be cool if it grabbed HN usernames somehow.
      jot on HN
  • ICQ

    From 1 comment
    • I like this idea, but here's a word of warning: ICQ actually had software that did this about a hundred years ago. It was a stand alone app you would download, and you could chat…
      lars on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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