We're sorry about this. It wasn't our intention to promote bogus upvotes. We're guessing as word spread throughout our group of companies, people got excited and up-voted.
We’re definitely going to be more careful about this in the future.
If you want this to be a good Slack competitor, please make a native mac client which doesn't perpetually take 15% of my CPU the way Slack does - i'd convince our team to switch on that basis alone (all else being equal).
I get why you are saying that, and we are working hard to ensure that our CPU/memory usage stays low. We aren't there yet, but hopefully we should soon be at a point where this is no longer a concern. (Not denying that Webkit based apps have some overhead already, but we are trying to keep the remaining overhead low).
That said, there's a significant advantage to using this approach -- you don't need to build different apps for different desktop platforms, plus it also helps to have same UI across platforms, which is why we went for this.
we use http://uifaces.com/ for our mocks and screenshots, and these are all pre-authorised images. However, if anyone from the community doesn’t want their pic up, we’ll be happy to take it down.
(I manage the marketing at Flock, and happy to answer any more questions you may have)
We launched our product a year and a half ago at SXSW in Austin, but it’s only recently that we’ve started aggressively marketing it.
This year, we were at Techcrunch Disrupt, NY and SF and currently exhibiting at TNW Momentum, NY. Do drop by our booth, if you happen to be in the city.
Also apps are a lot more powerful in flock. In slack you can only interact with apps using slash commands. In flock, an app can declare UI buttons in multiple places which can trigger actions like opening a widget or sending events to app backend. You can also include widgets inside your messages (e.g. checkout our polls app). Read our API docs for more: https://docs.flock.co/
Looks neat. Small UI comment on the landing page: the header of the columns looks exactly like the links so I initially clicked on Flock OS wondering what it was before realising it wasn't a link.
What's the stack behind it (frontend/backend)?
PS: tried to open the FlockOS blog to see what it was and all I see is an empty Medium page?
as a developer, I was curious to read about building apps for flock. let me tell you about my experience:
first, I had to create an account. I just wanted to get some information, but ok. after entering an email (in firefox), getting a pin via email, entering the pin, I got redirected to a page that said: "No account set yet." I tried to sign in via https://web.flock.co/, where it told me that firefox wasn't supported. So I tried the same steps with chrome, where it told me "Access Denied", and I need to contact developer support.
Maybe you guys are not ready yet? Or where can a developer get some information about creating apps for your platform?
I am sorry you had to face this, we are aware of this issue and are fixing it. We have only just opened up our API platform (FlockOS) for external developers, and we are mostly reaching out to them via hackathons, where we make the steps required very clear. I hadn't imagined us getting HNed right now :-|
So the issue is that you need to sign up before you can access the developer dashboard, and you can only do that through a Flock client as of now. Unfortunately, as you found out, our web client doesn't support Firefox and that's basically hit our worst case scenario with this issue.
If you want to try it out, you can sign up using web.flock.co on Chrome or Safari, or download one of our clients. Once you do that you will be able to sign in to https://dev.flock.co. The documentation for building apps is on https://docs.flock.co.
We don't use Electron, but its the same principle. The desktop app is written using HTML/CSS/Javascript running inside a webview.
I get why people hate Electron based apps, and we are working hard to ensure that Flock keeps its footprint as low as possible given our architecture (there's a significant advantage in building one desktop app instead of three different ones). We are not there yet, but soon we should reach a point where our CPU/memory usage is not a concern.
Whoops! We have a very permissive email regex, your address should have passed. Can you tell me where exactly this check failed? (edit: I got it, we will get this fixed quickly)
Are there any plans to add video calls or screen sharing as a feature? Having those work cross platform would be a huge advantage over other existing messaging applications.
Flock supports video calling and screen sharing via appear.in and Google Hangouts integration. And it works cross platform too. We don't have anything native yet.
You have some copy duplication at the bottom of the page in the press area, PCWorld and ComputerWorld both have the same "Meet flock [...] productivity gains" text.
Like the ui. The mobile app is nice. Works seamlessly on ubuntu with chrome extension. Have not seen a situation where I have ran out of cpu cycles. I have an i5. Its nice. I have faced one challenge though a few times, that is, it takes a little while to reconnect when u bring the laptop out of suspend. It connects eventually but u wait like for 15 seconds before u can start. It is not a deal breaker though :) good job. Keep going.
[+] [-] dang|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chubs|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
That said, there's a significant advantage to using this approach -- you don't need to build different apps for different desktop platforms, plus it also helps to have same UI across platforms, which is why we went for this.
[+] [-] munaf|9 years ago|reply
Did you get permission to use their photographs?
[1] http://imgur.com/a/nWbtt
[+] [-] vidhisn|9 years ago|reply
(I manage the marketing at Flock, and happy to answer any more questions you may have)
[+] [-] Shank|9 years ago|reply
These are absolutely huge names -- how have I not heard of this before?
[+] [-] vidhisn|9 years ago|reply
We launched our product a year and a half ago at SXSW in Austin, but it’s only recently that we’ve started aggressively marketing it.
This year, we were at Techcrunch Disrupt, NY and SF and currently exhibiting at TNW Momentum, NY. Do drop by our booth, if you happen to be in the city.
[+] [-] paukiatwee|9 years ago|reply
A lot of Show HN apps/websites using big companies logo, not sure why it is legal to do so, when I believe all is for marketing.
And I hope they will response to your comment.
[+] [-] agilebyte|9 years ago|reply
(according to them)
[+] [-] me551ah|9 years ago|reply
(PS: I work in the Flock android team)
[+] [-] sandGorgon|9 years ago|reply
Good going @chaitanya - can you talk about the technology stack choices ? Clojure ?
Quick question - how does one migrate ? can you pull all data out of hipchat/slack ?
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
Our backend is mostly Java, the desktop app is based on HTML/CSS/Javascript while the mobile apps are native.
We are working on a migration tool from Slack (and others) to Flock, we will release it soon.
[+] [-] Keats|9 years ago|reply
What's the stack behind it (frontend/backend)?
PS: tried to open the FlockOS blog to see what it was and all I see is an empty Medium page?
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
Our backend is mostly Java, the desktop app is based on HTML/CSS/Javascript while the mobile apps are native.
[+] [-] wnm|9 years ago|reply
Maybe you guys are not ready yet? Or where can a developer get some information about creating apps for your platform?
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
So the issue is that you need to sign up before you can access the developer dashboard, and you can only do that through a Flock client as of now. Unfortunately, as you found out, our web client doesn't support Firefox and that's basically hit our worst case scenario with this issue.
If you want to try it out, you can sign up using web.flock.co on Chrome or Safari, or download one of our clients. Once you do that you will be able to sign in to https://dev.flock.co. The documentation for building apps is on https://docs.flock.co.
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sergiotapia|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] domoritz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
I get why people hate Electron based apps, and we are working hard to ensure that Flock keeps its footprint as low as possible given our architecture (there's a significant advantage in building one desktop app instead of three different ones). We are not there yet, but soon we should reach a point where our CPU/memory usage is not a concern.
[+] [-] me551ah|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sukhmeet2390|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gbraad|9 years ago|reply
Wondering why people still check for 'valid' email addresses.
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acedinlowball|9 years ago|reply
Thank you sir!
[+] [-] scottharveyco|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] me551ah|9 years ago|reply
(PS: I work in the Flock android team)
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] malnourish|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
(I am the CTO of Flock, and will be happy to answer any of your queries).
[+] [-] zillionize|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrmondo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petepete|9 years ago|reply
https://www.mattermost.org
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icholy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoverbear|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaitanya|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kedar_apte|9 years ago|reply