Comment by robotbikes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robotbikes | Hacker News Reader

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Yeah I wasn't impressed either, unfortunately it seemed like a combination of cool ideas but lacked any sort of network effect. I mean even an app like Duo by Google is pretty functionless if you don't know anyone using it. This is the primary problem with communication technologies. How do you convince your friends to use it. The other option would be some sort of friend-making mechanism. This is where even marginal social networks can be functional because you can at least see the other people using them.

Also the UI and layout left quite a bit to be desired. Mainly I didn't like how it just ran seemingly crashing in the background occasionally and I never had anyone to talk to one it.

There is a big difference needed when designing free software for individual productivity vs. social software where the usefulness depends upon other people using it and a lot of projects don't get past the cool prototype faze. Since they aren't likely to be seeking VC money to monetize it, then it will probably remain a cool demo for some time. At least the Signal people have tried to make a product that is fully usable by anyone who can install an app.

There is a need for skype replacement, as Microsoft is actively killing it.

What people use skype for:

* chat (many alternatives)

* video calls (many alternatives)

* PSTN gateway (SIP is an alternative. It is handy sometimes, but loosing relevance as IP connectivity is becoming more global)

* conferencing (no good known alternative, which is as simple, ad-hoc)

* screen sharing (many alternatives, but it is ad-hoc, simple.)

* simple file sharing (many alternatives)

Now screen sharing and ad-hoc conferences are very powerful combo, and I'm looking for alternatives, as I'm afraid skype will be totally useless for me in a year or so, if the current trends hold on.

This could make for a good use of this software. The biggest issue free software such as this have is still adoption by less technically inclined people and a steep learning curve for techies. More effort needs to be put into cognitive reasoning and user planning but these skills aren't typically focused on by computer scientists. Whereas something like this absolutely needs to just work for it to gain traction and be useful for anyone other than niche teams capable of designating it as the defacto tool. If there are obstacles people will usually switch to the lowest common denominator like Google Hangouts or whatever they can use without installing something. It could be a good Skype replacement but the challenge is focusing on usability in conjunction with functionality.

Maybe we have a very different definition of conferencing, but I don't consider skype capable of conferencing. It can't record conferences (including what is presented), it can't pre-share a link to a planned conference to participants, it can't have the organizer mute/unmute others and grant presenter status (critical for larger-scale online conferences), etc...

I use gotomeeting for conferencing. For an ad-hoc conference I just create a meeting and share the link to it across mail/skype/... to all participants.

I said simple ad-hoc conference calls. Like a phone conference, even more simply: just drag and drop some contacts to a call, and they all can participate. (It worked like a charm in skype. you can even share a screen and files and chat with the conference call)

No conference link, no recording, no fancy web-ex like stuff.

If you take a look at recent success stories many had a success through simplicity. Startups, ordinary people, small business don't want the enterprisey complicated stuff where a complete IT department is needed to set up a conference. They like simple stuff that works, and are willing to give up some expectations due to limitations of a tool. (I had to give up far more expectations for enterprisey stuff for consumer stuff)

How about https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/ ?

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