Flickr co-founder once again bounces from games to business

April 15, 2013

Both games and business loom large in Stewart Butterfield's creative cycle. His first project was an innovative MMO called Game Neverending, which never made it past the prototype stage, but nonetheless birthed the photo-sharing site Flickr in 2004. That humble little property blew up, of course, and Butterfield suddenly became a man to watch. Flash forward to 2009. Butterfield launched a new MMO game called Glitch. It was a hit among fanatics, but there weren't enough of them, and Glitch shut down for good last December. But just like before, Butterfield is raising a potentially powerful phoenix from the ashes of an MMO. This time, he's focusing on collaboration and communication software for business environments. It's called Slack, and it's the very software Butterfield and his team developed to help them create and run Glitch. Butterfield's company, Tiny Speck, is developing Slack to meet the needs of its own multiple-location business. Tiny Speck's principals work in three different cities, two different time zones, and two different countries. Off-the-shelf collaboration platforms just couldn't fulfill Tiny Speck's requirements for keeping everyone in touch. Just a few days ago, Tiny Speck added the word "working" to its public mission statement, signaling that the intent behind its next project. A Tiny Speck employee who spoke with PCWorld says that group colloboration platforms already on the market can be frustrating. "They try to enforce a worldview as to how things should be done," said the source, who requested anonymity. So rather than than use software that might not fit their needs, the Tiny Speck crew built their own. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2033803/flickr-co-founder-once-again-bounces-from-games-to-business.html#tk.rss_reviews