This is always the most exciting day for any startup. We’ve peeled off the beta sticker and opened HipChat to the public. So sign up, invite your team members, and resolve to have fewer meetings this year.

To all our beta testers, thank you.

We know how hard it can be to get your company to try something new, nevermind an unlaunched beta product. So thank you to all of those who’ve taken the plunge, we won’t forget it. HipChat has been in private beta for just a month, but our amazing beta testers have created some equally amazing stats. Nearly 500 teams have signed up and together they’ve sent over 100,000 messages. Many of them are now paying customers and have made HipChat a part of their everyday work flow.

Learn more about HipChat.

HipChat is a private chat network for your company, team, or organization. Get more done with chat rooms, file sharing, and searchable chat history. HipChat runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux thanks to our best-of-breed (trust us) Adobe AIR application. Here’s a taste of what it can do.

Here are a few features…

• Chat rooms - Use rooms for departments, teams, or projects. Make them open for anyone to join, or private for only people invited.
• File sharing - Share files in seconds for instant feedback. You control who can see them. Access files any time from the HipChat client or on the web.
• Searchable chat history – HipChat automatically saves your conversations and files. Never forget who said what, and when. Search and acccess history anywhere you have internet.
• Notifications – You won’t miss miss a thing thanks to HipChat’s sounds and toaster pop-ups. You can even get someone’s attention by typing “@name”.
• Instant image preview – Share an image file and you’ll get a live preview. Perfect for creative or design teams. Hour long design sessions are a thing of the past.
• Emoticons – Express yourself in a room or a one on one chat. You should probably stay away from the kissy face if you’re at work.

About HipChat

Founded in September 2009, HipChat is self-funded by the founders: Chris Rivers, Garret Heaton, and Pete Curley. Before HipChat, we’re three of the guys who started HipCal, an online calendar service that was acquired by Plaxo in 2006. Then we created Plaxo Pulse, the first lifestream aggregator of its kind. Plaxo was acquired by Comcast in 2008. We left Comcast 6 months ago to work on HipChat full-time.

Ever started a private chat with someone in your team and noticed the silhouette that shows up?  We put the silhouettes there a while ago with the intention that some day you’d be able to actually see a real photo.  Today is that day.

If you head on over to http://hipchat.com/account you’ll notice some new UI that lets you choose and upload a photo:

Upload Photo UI

Once you upload a photo here, anyone who starts chatting with you in the HipChat client will get to see something a little better than that old boring silhouette. Unless that’s what your face looks like.

Sidebar Photo

One problem we’ve had with sharing files in HipChat is that there was no good way to go back and find them.  We’d share a mockup of a design one day, but the next day it had scrolled off our history. We’d either have to post a link to it or share it again.  In comes the files and links sidebar:

Files and Links Sidebar

As you can see, we show the latest files and links shared in any room (or private chat).  It lets you quickly find that last screen shot shared by your designer or the sales data that was uploaded last week.  Use the links section to find that link to yesterday’s top Digg story you wanted to share on Facebook.

We hope it makes sharing things in HipChat a little easier.

If you have any issues with the new sidebar or just want to give some feedback, visit our help site at http://help.hipchat.com

Our goal

We’ve worked at a 3-person startup and a Fortune 50 behemoth. We’ve seen what works, and what doesn’t. Email is slow, meetings get sidetracked, and regular IM doesn’t work well for groups. HipChat helps you share text, code, and files for instant decision making. We want to help your company/organization be a more productive (and fun) place to be.

HipChat is a private, hosted chat network with a desktop client that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux thanks to Adobe AIR. Here’s a taste of what it can do:

• Chat rooms - Use rooms for departments, teams, or projects. Make them open for anyone to join, or private for only people invited.
• File sharing - Share files in seconds for instant feedback. You control who can see them. Access files any time from the HipChat client or on the web.
• Searchable chat history – HipChat automatically saves your conversations and files. Never forget who said what, and when. Search and acccess history anywhere you have internet.
• Notifications – You won’t miss miss a thing thanks to HipChat’s sounds and toaster pop-ups. You can even get someone’s attention by typing “@name”.
• Instant image preview – Share an image file and you’ll get a live preview. Perfect for creative or design teams. Hour long design sessions are a thing of the past.
• Emoticons – Express yourself in a room or a one on one chat. You should probably stay away from the kissy face if you’re at work.

About the team

We created HipCal. Plaxo liked it, so we went to work for them. We created Plaxo Pulse. Comcast liked it, so we went to work for them. HipChat is our current baby.

We are currently “bootstrapped for cash”.

Read more about us or more about HipChat.