I was wondering if minnit would ever consider making a side part of the site to post storied (like MizzKassie mentioned), or something with blog function. Wondering how minnit would put it’s take on that.
making a side part of the site to post storie[s]
Not likely.
or something with blog function. Wondering how minnit would put it’s take on that.
In the words of Jeff Goldblum:
I’ve used WordPress, in some form or another, for over a decade now, so I’m very familiar with blogs. Minnit even has a WordPress plugin, where you can automatically sync users from your WordPress blog into your chatroom, without needing to know any code. WordPress is fantastic, and servers that run WordPress can be had for cheap. A server that costs $6/month in some cases is more than enough for a lot of use-cases, perhaps even lower if you shop around. Blogs are also easy to cache, and they scale naturally.
Chatrooms are different. Self-hosted chatrooms typically rely on polling, not websockets, which makes things slow. I’m sure many of us over the years have seen a random site that has a chatroom, where, when you send a message, it takes a few seconds before you see it. Then, five seconds later, a batch of new messages arrives. Then, after another five seconds, more come in, and you can finally see if someone replied to you. Sure the owner saves money, but it’s just not fun to use. Nobody wants things to feel slow. 
If you want a fast chatroom hosted on your servers, you’ll need to seriously upgrade. For hundreds, or thousands, of real-time websocket connections, you’ll have to spend a lot to get started. Not to mention worrying about storing file uploads (profile photos, plus attachments in chat messages), which can also be expensive. If you rely on shared servers, some of them will suspend you if you ever try to install a self-hosted websocket chatroom, they’re that taxing.
Unlike blogs, chatrooms also increase usage exponentially as more users join. Ignoring assets (CSS/JS/etc) for a bit, think of this way: With a blog, if you write a post, and 100 users view it, that’s 100 one-and-done requests. With a chatroom, if 100 people join, and each one says “hello,” then that is 100 requests… which must then be sent back to everyone else in the chatroom! So now we’re looking at 100 messages, each individually going out to 100 different connections, for (100*100)=10,000 bits of data going back and forth. That’s a lot beefier than a blog.
Think about how you can get fresh fruit and produce from the farmer’s market for a cheaper price than doing it yourself; the farmer has a field, lots of soil, lots of water, and takes the time to do it right, and, because of this, the farmer is able to sell each individual crop for a lower price than it would take an individual to do it themselves. Everybody wins. Our product is the same way; we sell access to our services for a much lower cost than if you were to host it yourself.
Our chatroom is able to solve a real problem. Since blogs are affordable as-is, I’m not sure there’s a problem for us to solve with blogs, so I don’t foresee us entering that space.
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