Show HN: Kwak, a real-time discussion platform

meritt 10 years ago |

> "real-time discussion platform"

So... it's chat?

dedif 10 years ago | |

Chat is more of a generic term. The discussions we refer to are content based (right now centered around one hashtag or a Tweet). We will have other contents soon (hint: original content).

dedif 10 years ago |

Hi, we wanted to show you a little something, so here it is.

We suggest you also read the manifesto[0] we wrote, telling more about our mission on this project.

[0] https://kwak.io/blog

bastijn 10 years ago | |

In my opinion you could have chosen a far better moment to launch, and a far better launch than the current. Don't expect your potential users to start digging for info for themselves (launch content) on a product they don't know and which on first sight is only irc (launch timing: better launched a bit later when you had a killer feature).

To me it is like you are introducing the iphone1 with the same famous talk by jobs, but stopping just before the it is one device killer punch line. Instead you are promisingbthat the 3 devices will become one in the future, with a lot less credit than Apple had at the time.

Lets end with saying good luck. I hope to see a subsequent announcement one day which reaches the FP, telling us you made it :).

dedif 10 years ago | | |

I totally get your point. Nearly everyone we talked to said "Great idea". We are simply applying the MVP principle, hopefully we'll grow from there :)

toggle 10 years ago |

This looks exactly like Shout[1]. This seems to be an IRC channel, and you have a web interface (using Shout) hosted on your domain, with some of Shout's features removed so that people can't use it to connect to other IRC servers. And you aren't giving any credit to Shout.

*EDIT: My apologies, I totally jumped the gun there. I didn't see the "?" at the bottom, which states that that's exactly what this is. I still think that you could give a little more credit to them, though. In my opinion, this is more than just "based" on Shout, as your credits say.

[1]:http://shout-irc.com/

dedif 10 years ago | |

shout is MIT opensource, we ack the use of the looknfeel (see our about). Kwak is by no mean IRC backed, it's our own dev work based on Meteor.

The interface will change eventually to support all the features that we intend.

We first started by mapping IRC features and for that shout is super convenient .. but it is just the start ;)

fiatjaf 10 years ago | |

Shout is MIT, so they don't need to give any credit.

benoror 10 years ago |

As I chat with one of the founders, If I had to describe the service I would write something like:

"kwak.io: a discussion-based (channels), real-time (chat) platform (server)"

which forme it sounds like: server + chat + channels === 'IRC'

Nowdays we have plenty of modern alternatives to good-old IRC: Slack, Gitter, Hipchat. So I asked where does kwak.io fits in?

For me it's a fun but unclear experiment. According to their manifesto (https://medium.com/@kwak.io/kwak-s-manifesto-14c69104e70) I get the "IRC communication style" part, but I'm not totally clear how will they achieve the "mixed with modern social features" part.

pixellab 10 years ago |

Very nice start! Dope logo.

Good idea to go MVP and get it out in the world and get some learning going. Of course the down side to MVCs is the user doesn't know it's MVC — some comments might reflect that ;)

Looking forward to seeing where you take this IRC-esq revival!

Phemist 10 years ago |

I like the name. A platform to leave our 'kwakjes'. And in real-time.

nemoniac 10 years ago | |

For those who might be wondering, it's a Dutch word for 'ejaculate'.

tomsmeding 10 years ago | | |

Uh no not really. It means quack or "to slam down", or something. But that's not the common meaning. Are you flemish? Don't know whether it might have extra meanings there.

nemoniac 10 years ago | | |

You might not be aware of it but it is indeed a common usage in both Dutch and Flemish, especially in the diminutive.

Phemist's tongue-in-cheek remark drew attention to it to suggest that the name might not be well chosen for those parts of the world.

See sense 2.2 here: http://www.vandale.nl/opzoeken?pattern=kwak&lang=nn

Or just google it (nsfw).

degenerate 10 years ago |

Very nice. The UI feels slightly slower (more sluggish) than web IRC chats. The ability to enable audio on messages or @mentions (in settings) is a good addition. But how does kwak want/expect people to use this? www.kwak.io just has 4 hashtags and jumps me straight into a chatroom. Either I am missing something or there's nothing more to this "Show HN" than literally showing it?

dedif 10 years ago | |

We haven't dig too much into optimization yet, it's _almost_ vanilla Meteor with MongoDB. The hashtags are created by the users, and they automatically rank based on activity, we will have many more interesting ranking algorithms to come.

aaron-lebo 10 years ago |

Where did this sudden interest in reinventing IRC come from? It seems we get one of these every day now.

CephalopodMD 10 years ago | |

It seems like this is, in fact, just a skinned IRC and not a reimplementation.

dedif 10 years ago | | |

What makes you think it's skinned IRC?

- you can't change nick

- you can go full anonymous

- Hashtags (or channels if you like) are automatically ranked)

- you can post media

- ...

fiatjaf 10 years ago |

This is IRC. Also the interface is the same of the Shout IRC client: http://shout-irc.com/

fiatjaf 10 years ago | |

That said, I've read the manifesto and I liked the idea. This has my support.

Dirlewanger 10 years ago |

Sooo, a Gitter clone?

dedif 10 years ago | |

More of a Slack for the rest of us. Please have a look at our manifesto: https://kwak.io/blog

loomi 10 years ago |

nice logo finally!

dedif 10 years ago | |

With a Meteor backend.