Just saw a demo of this; it blew me away with a clean UI, and some awesome features -- the search/ACL implementations are REALLY slick. It also gets rid of another problem I have, which is that I hate installing/configuring IRC servers.
Every company I've ever worked for has needed this.
Hubot does provide the irc-interface but then github itself doesn't provide a hubot hook. So you're pretty much stuck at the same place. Github itself does provide an IRC hook but that does not work since it can't authenticate with nickserv, it only allows for server and room passwords.
Looks great, I'd love to try it, but I had an error 500 while attempting to register.
Being an IRC fan, I believe a service like this will really help me to convince my workmates to talk over something else than Google Talk or Skype.
This would be cool if it included what I think is the most useful aspect of IRC for teams: trainable IRC bots.
Back in 1999 - I used IRC to manage my IT org. We had two IT channels: one for IT staff, which we were all required to be logged into when on the clock - and another that was company wide, where users could jump on IRC to ask the IT/dev/support teams questions.
We used bots to train IT FAQ and system info...
So for example, we would type "DNS Server" and the bot would reply with the IP of the DNS server.
We could type in a hostname and the bot would reply with the system details we put in there.
So, i this had the capability of learning and storing data that was retrievable in this way, rather than simple search, I think it could be very useful.
I dunno, I was pretty happy with it. It was really nice to have at conferences. Like any social medium, there's a tough chicken-and-egg nut to crack. I'm going to try to use it at Supercomputing next week.
I'd be interested to know how this stacks up against HipChat. I'm not sure what I'm missing out on, but it would be good to hear if there is something.
The major advantage I see with this over HipChat is that you can use existing IRC client software to connect. Personally, I'd much prefer Irssi in a terminal to an Adobe AIR product.
I can see the reasons for that, but the HipChat application lets you drag and drop files to share them with everyone in a room, auto-loads images... that alone is worth the client app to me.
You can connect to HipChat from any Jabber client, though unfortunately it makes chat rooms slightly less discoverable. (I’ve used Adium with reasonable success.) The big advantage is that (at least on a Mac) the Adobe AIR version is a tremendous CPU hog.
One functionality I miss from HipChat that I haven't found here, is the ability to copy files from your disk and paste them to the chat (or drag and drop), where they get automatically uploaded so all the chat members can view or download them. If Grove gets that, I'm sold.
Unless I'm missing some detail of what you're saying, HipChat already does that. I regularly drag screenshots into a conversation. Hipchat uploads them to S3.
There is a size restriction, though, which I've run up against more times than I can count, since I never seem to be able to remember that it's there.
I was thinking something like this would come in handy the other day. Goes to show if you have an idea, chances are someone else is already thinking about it.
Even if this is true (I have no idea whether it is), making this comment here and at this time is in extremely poor form. You should be ashamed of your utter lack of simple etiquette.
Grove is primarily an IRC server for your business (the client is tangential), so please don't give up! Actually, feel free to send me an email - I'd love to help you get your web client working smoothly with the Grove server.
Cool idea. However, I am missing the method to auto-group chats by topic. Would be nice to have it with IRC.
Currently, I am doing that (not with IRC, but with Jabber/XMPP) via my side-project http://TwoToReal.com (beta): You ask questions (or raise topics) for which automatically determined experts are then pulled in via IM into a real-time web chat (most of the knobs/switches are tuned by machine learning).
"We are offering a free trial on all organizations during our beta testing period......
If you sign up for an organization we may contact you to gather feedback - both to improve Grove and help us determine our pricing."
I'd say that means it'll likely be a paid for service. Maybe with a small free option.
Maybe it's just in my circles like this, but I think these days chat itself is no service anymore. You need to integrate it into something else, like social networks, gtalk, skype (chat+telephone), "webcam-services". 10 years ago Grove might've been awesome, but now it feels like something is missing, because I can chat everywhere else contextrelated anyway.
Look how meebo developed over the last years. First it integrated web and traditional chat media like ICQ, MSN and then they already moved on to integrate their chat services into other peoples web-businessmodels as a b2b service.
You are right, there is a possible niche that is probably profitable. Thus the businessmodel might be valid, even if they have no chance of hitting any main stream markets (with the businessmodel they have right now).
Not sure whether it is in your vision as well, but wouldn't it be cool if Grove.io offered a library of such IRC agents in the same manner as HuBot from GitHub?
I think this is a super cool idea and it's something I've been thinking a lot about. Right now, existing IRC bots work fine with Grove but it would be cooler to have more integration.
Could even open a market of such bots for you: Customers of Grove.io could then offer their bots in your IRC bot market place ... but now I'm just dreaming ;-)
I would suggest something like Twilio where you host your own xml at a specified url that twilio calls when it receives a call/sms for you. Similarly grove api consumers can specify a url that can be called by grove when a message is received in a channel and api consumers can respond ina predefined json.
I'd probably start with a configurable bot with a few predefined plugins (RSS feeds, version control / bug tracker integration, etc) and a configuration UI (similar to Github's Services hooks)
Eventually you could add a way to define custom plugins that are properly sandboxed.
You're describing http://hubot.github.com/ which ist pretty much a configurable bot with a few scripts and an irc adapter. It doesn't have a configuration page though.
Grove looks very cool. But groupme is free and has a good iphone/android client that a non-technical user can setup and use. Push notifications work great.
But Grove intrigues me for the ability to hook up useful bots to IRC.
If Groupme had an API available now, I'm not sure Grove would offer any benefits for my purposes. But I love how this space is exploding with all sorts of cool services.
But aren't the hassles one of the aspects us "geeks" like about IRC? I think us "geeks" deep inside love the terminal, having to setup an IRC client on a hosted server and tweaking the settings, getting our hands dirty. Us, "geeks", love also the sense of exclusivity that the barrier to entry to IRC provides. Take that, and the hassles, away and it becomes yet another chat network.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 189 ms ] threadEvery company I've ever worked for has needed this.
Update: I've made a few tweaks and it should be better now. fingers crossed
Back in 1999 - I used IRC to manage my IT org. We had two IT channels: one for IT staff, which we were all required to be logged into when on the clock - and another that was company wide, where users could jump on IRC to ask the IT/dev/support teams questions.
We used bots to train IT FAQ and system info...
So for example, we would type "DNS Server" and the bot would reply with the IP of the DNS server.
We could type in a hostname and the bot would reply with the system details we put in there.
So, i this had the capability of learning and storing data that was retrievable in this way, rather than simple search, I think it could be very useful.
User:"Whats the current version of ProductX"
Bot:"Product X current version is 1.1.2"
For example, can you edit the searchable logs to remove spam?
There is a size restriction, though, which I've run up against more times than I can count, since I never seem to be able to remember that it's there.
If you're interested, here's my client so far:
http://web-irc.nodester.com/
https://github.com/akavlie/web-irc
If anybody wants a channel on freenode logged publicly, feel free to contact me.
(The search facility currently sucks, I'm working on a very different search backend these days).
Currently, I am doing that (not with IRC, but with Jabber/XMPP) via my side-project http://TwoToReal.com (beta): You ask questions (or raise topics) for which automatically determined experts are then pulled in via IM into a real-time web chat (most of the knobs/switches are tuned by machine learning).
What are your pricing plans?
I'd say that means it'll likely be a paid for service. Maybe with a small free option.
I've been working on an open source version of what you're purporting to provide as a service.
I could charge instance-hours for a prefabbed EC2 instance image too.
Look how meebo developed over the last years. First it integrated web and traditional chat media like ICQ, MSN and then they already moved on to integrate their chat services into other peoples web-businessmodels as a b2b service.
When you take that sort of investment, the rules of the game change a lot I think. It's no longer sufficient to make a few million profit a month.
And yet lots of shops pay 37signals for Campfire
Easy hosted custom plugins/bots would be awesome.
You can run your own IRC bot, of course, but then you have to worry about finding a server to run it on, keep it running, etc.
Eventually you could add a way to define custom plugins that are properly sandboxed.
But Grove intrigues me for the ability to hook up useful bots to IRC.
If Groupme had an API available now, I'm not sure Grove would offer any benefits for my purposes. But I love how this space is exploding with all sorts of cool services.