HipChat: Better-Than-Enterprise Instant Messaging for Your Organization

HipChat is a chat service aimed at small business communications. It’s similar to Yammer or Campfire, providing a method for instant messaging others within your company. It works via an Adobe AIR client, which means they’ve got most platforms covered. While other solutions do exist for Instant Messaging communications within a company, there is always a problem of simplicity and privacy. This is why we find services like HipChat, Yammer, and Campfire gaining traction.

The Basics

To get started with HipChat, simply create your account and download the client. The whole process takes just a few seconds. Because it’s Adobe AIR, it works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. HipChat includes a 5-minute tutorial video to help you get started with the basic features. Adobe AIR applications can sometimes get a little creative with their design choices, but HipChat keeps things clean and simple. All the standard IM/Chat features you would expect to find are here, including:

• Rooms list, including how many people are in each room, who the admin is, and when it was last active
• List of co-workers along with their availability and idle status.
• One-on-one chat is available and can only be seen by the two participants. No boss snooping.
• Each room keeps a log of it’s activity, so you can always scroll back to see what you missed.
• Desktop notifications help you keep up with the chat even if you’re doing something else.
• File-sharing and storage, a must for most business discussions.
• Emoticons can be inserted with two clicks of your mouse.

Managing Rooms

Creating rooms is as simple as the click of a button. Fill out the Name, Topic, and decide whether the room will be Public or Private. The topic can always be changed later to better reflect the flow of the discussion. If you do choose to create a private room, you can easily invite people during the creation of the room, or add people later on. Start typing the person’s name that you would like to invite, and HipChat gives you a list of matches. This eliminates the need to actually know someone’s email address.

Sharing files with your team is as simple as dragging the file into the chat window. You can also follow the regular file upload process by clicking the paper clip. Documents are viewable directly in the chat. There is also a search feature that lets you find things by keyword within any room or company-wide, a very powerful and useful feature.

HipChat is pretty slick so far, but still has some limitations. You can only access it from the AIR interface. No mobile device support at this time. There isn’t yet a method to even receive mobile notifications. However, HipChat has had nearly 500 companies sign up who have exchanged over 100,000 messages according to TechCrunch. This indicates that there is space for them in their niche, even though they are somewhat tardy to the party.

About the Author
Rahsheen has been a certified geek since before it was the thing to do. He started programming and tinkering in the 4th grade. Now, Rahsheen mostly writes on various sites about technology trends in social media and mobile. . He is also a musician, singer, rapper, writer, and producer. @rahsheen - +Rahsheen Porter - coachrah.com
See all posts by rahsheen.