Despite the “hip” name, HipChat is a business chat app centered around team collaboration, offering both instant messaging and group chat.
HipChat is a hosted private chat service for your company or team. Invite colleagues to share ideas and files in persistent group chat rooms. Get your team off AIM, Google Talk, and Skype — HipChat was built for business.
HipChat isn’t just another player in the crowded IM game. This isn’t AIM in a suit, either. Admins control who joins the secure network as well as what can be seen. Meanwhile, it’s just as easy to use as any other IM client. It runs on every desktop, in your favorite modern browser, or your smartphone. You can also use their free iPhone/iPad app and SMS to stay connected when you’re on the go (Android app is in dev).
HipChat comes with some features, too:
- File sharing and storage
Access them any time from the HipChat client or on the web. Plus, it’s drag-and-drop! - Chat Rooms
Open, private or invite only. Setup rooms for departments, teams and projects. - One-on-one messaging
Have side conversations with team members. - Notifications
Customize your alerts, and get someone’s attention with @name. - Emoticons
Say it with a smile. - API
Send a message to a room when someone posts a blog, checks in code or fixes a bug. - Chat and file history
Every conversation and file is saved. - Instant image preview
Link or image gives you a live preview. This includes links to Twitter and YouTube videos! - SMS
You can send one-on-one messages via SMS, and it even saves it in your chat history for you. - Guest access
Perfect for clients, vendors and customer support. - Spell checking
Love this option. - Video and Voice Chat
Goodbye Skype. - Real names, not screen names
This is a really nice touch. It beats jBieberFan4716.
Here’s how the pricing works.
The iPhone/iPad app is free, but that just gives you a basic idea of the look and feel of the service. If you want to use all these deep features, you’ll need to grab a subscription. Prices are as follows:
This is one of the more affordable business solutions I’ve seen out there.
HipChat is most certainly worth a look with their 30-day free trial.
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