Kickstarter: Dialoggs - A Better Communication Network

Yesterday we featured a unique Kickstarter project, Hive. Today we’re featuring the first type of browser-based Kickstarter Project we have featured on MacStories and it’s called Dialoggs by Drew Wilson, a popular designer/developer from California. Drew is best known for his Pictos icon sets and Valio, a web application development company. He also has a few new projects up his sleeve too, one being a Mac app called Screeny.

Dialoggs is set to be a new network for better communication, “filling the gap between Twitter, iChat and Tumblr” – it is NOT a client for any of the previously mentioned networks.

It’s realtime, has invites for open and private discussions, and all posts are saved and have their own page. You can attach media and code as well in each post. There’s even an option to “follow” and “unfollow” other Dialoggs users. Recommend users, browse others and “mention” people in posts like Twitter/Facebook; it’s more than just status updates, and it’s much more than a static blog with comments. Drew calls it “the best of both worlds. It’s realtime communication that is permanently stored and (optionally) publicly available.”

Video and screenshots after the break.

Dialoggs gets its name from group discussions, posts and private conversations - all grouped together on one network. The service will be a free service for anyone to use too.

Don’t confuse Dialoggs with Twitter; it may have some similar features but it’s all about discussions with multiple people so it has a different vision and expanded feature set. It’s also not just chat, it’s social and shareable. It’s not Tumblr either, it goes much further in communicating with others on the network.

Dialoggs will also have a public API that people can use to create their own clients, whether it be for iOS, Mac or Android. Drew stresses the importantance of community on this project. “Dialoggs is for the community, I WANT you guys to build even better things then I ever could with this new network. Dialoggs is YOUR network.”

So why would anyone want to use Dialoggs? What’s wrong with Twitter + iChat + Tumblr? Well, it combines all 3 plus more. It will give users the means to communicate easier and share that communication easier. For you Open Source fans, the Dialoggs API that Drew is building is called Nixus, and it’s a new RESTful and Realtime Node.js API that will be posted on Github for everyone to play with. This is a great idea and not just for the Dialoggs service.

Dialoggs’ Kickstarter page showed up overnight, so it’s shiny and new and there are 20 days of pledge time left. The goal is $15,000 and the project already has 19 backers for almost $2,000. The money raised from Kickstarter will go directly to the development - paying for servers, any other development related 3rd party web services and Drew’s time as he works on this project. Pledge amounts vary from $5 to $2,000+. Drew is giving away his Pictos vector icon sets along with early beta access, the Pictos font, Screeny (an upcoming Mac app), resource files and a special thanks. Check out the Kickstarter page for all the details.

This really is a great idea. All of today’s large social networks all started out as original or improved ideas. Dialoggs could be just this! If you’re interested in pledging to Dialoggs, head on over to the Pledge page and check it out!