Branch.com

1/19/2017

Finally. Slack has just released threaded messaging, a way to connect related messages within a chatroom.

New Threads
It seems like a pretty simple update, but it took two years to create; this launch marks the fourth iteration of how Slack imagines threads could work. Rosania says it may not make sense for every channel to have threads in it. But he also thinks there could be new and creative use cases for them. Within Slack itself, some engineers have used threaded messaging to track the various bugs reported to the company. If a coder had particular expertise in resolving a certain kind of bug, that team member could respond directly (or ping the right person) without interrupting the larger flow of discussion. With threads, Slack users can also scroll past multiple topics to find the ones most relevant to them, cutting down on the time needed to find messages in a more free-flowing chat.

Aside from its practical application in the workplace, threaded messaging is a reminder that while Slack is still by far the buzziest of productivity apps at the moment, it’s under tremendous pressure to keep innovating. Nine-year-old note-taking app Evernote just rolled out a major reboot of its app, and is eyeing an AI-powered future. Tech giant Salesforce agreed to purchase productivity powerhouse Quip last summer. Not to mention, one of the main things threaded messages seems to want to accomplish—tracking the progress of several projects—is the very premise of the popular to-do app Trello.

Threaded messages alone won’t fend off the competition, but it’s another feature Slack can boast about. More importantly, it can evolve along with its users. “We expect that threads will reveal more about how Slack can be used in the workplace to be productive,” Rosania says. In the meantime, at the very least, threads should at least help WIRED’s cookie fans accomplish the stated motto of the channel. Heck, maybe we’ll branch out into sharing recipes next.

Amazon.com: How to Think Straight About Psychology (10th Edition) (9780205914128): Keith E. Stanovich: Books

How users are hacking discovery into Facebook #Rooms

Potluck iPhone app new design

Branch, the Obvious-backed discussion service, has just released Potluck for iPhone after launching the service on the Web just three weeks ago.

As we said during its debut, Potluck’s link-sharing community could be compared to services like Digg and Reddit, but it isn’t focused on surfacing the best content with upvotes. Instead, Branch likens Potluck to a house party on the Internet, and its casual nature makes for a comfortable place to share interesting sites, articles, videos and imagery.

While Potluck’s Web release caught our attention, Branch co-founder Josh Miller tells us he fully expects “the Potluck mobile app(s) to be more popular than the web app.” Miller went on, saying Branch “originally built the web app in order to prototype and test concepts for the iOS app.”

A few weeks ago, Miller wrote that he was "bullish" on Facebook, but last year, he wasn't so optimistic. "Facebook may have an irreversibly bad brand," he wrote, in a popular Medium post titled "Tenth Grade Tech Trends." It might outwardly appear that Miller penned the more recent post to appease his acquirer — and just in time — but despite the post's title, he offered more criticism of the social network. "I think sharing on Facebook will become more analogous to sending Christmas Cards," he wrote. He also offered several ways Facebook could improve its News Feed, such as by building it out into a separate app solely for consuming news. Perhaps thoughts like these are part of what incentivized Facebook to acquire Branch. The company has a talented and thoughtful team, but never had a smash hit.

Jelly, the new Q&A app from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, may have a secondary purpose beyond becoming the living embodiment of the Lazyweb - it’s now breaking news, too, it seems. This morning, news outlets covered the acquisition of Branch Media by Facebook, following an official announcement by company co-founder Josh Miller, posted to Facebook around 9 AM EST. But Jelly had the news last night, it turns out.

A question that appeared at random in the app in this morning’s flow had a user asking, “what happened [to] Branch? The company has been quiet. Are they focusing on the Potluck app now?” Apparently, the question’s asker was interested in the direction Branch Media was taking, wondering whether it was abandoning its early conversation service called Branch in favor of its new link-sharing, mobile news app Potluck.

The company is most often associated with Twitter, as it takes advantage of Twitter users’ propensity to get involved in longer, more involved discussions, which can often be hard to then limit to Twitter’s 140 characters, or follow using Twitter.com or its associated apps. In some ways, you could say that Branch is enabling a long-form version of Twitter, to put it simply. It’s the crossroads in between a tweet and a blog posts’ comments section, perhaps.

Another new feature is an Activity Feed, which lets you keep track of the changes surrounding the Branches you’re a part of, including number of views, who’s watching your Branches, highlights and other activities, members joining your groups, and more.

Over the past few years, new properties such as Tumblr and Posterous, among others, emerged to further simplify the ease of creating and sharing content, though at the same time, users could have also just used the “Notes” product within Facebook, or posted directly on Quora or on their Google+ pages, or simply used Twitter as a microblogging platform. With these asymmetric “follower” model networks (including Facebook now, with the “subscribe” feature), users have to potential to tap, build, and maintain larger audiences, to know more about their audiences tastes and preferences. Readers also don’t have to rely on finding content that’s optimized for SEO through backlinking, but rather through social discovery filters and interest-matching algorithms.

Today in 2012, the publishing category is once again, all of a sudden, crazy competitive. Branch has implemented a subtle and clever twist on Quora’s formula for content generation and quality controls by employing an “invite-to-thread” model for each “branch” (many of which are prompted by questions), as well as allowing users to create new “branches” by forking discussions when users want to take a topic elsewhere.

by Josh Miller

According to Ev, the most important feature of any publishing platform is audience. Nifty tools and novel UIs are great, but without audience you will eventually lose to a networked competitor.

Ev didn't realize this while he was building Blogger, and Tumblr is the household name today. He also credits the "Follow" model for Twitter's success - not its 140 character constraint.

Similarly, do you keep going back to Instagram for its Filters, or do the Likes and Comments have you hooked?

If Branch is going to be successful, we'll have to provide a compelling audience as well. Ours will be based around intimacy and trust, but my hunch is that that will be just as compelling.

by Kent Palmer

Branch looks more like the kind of system I have been advocating here on Quora. Quora misses the boat when it comes to true dialogue. Looks like Branch has thought a bit deeper about to nature of real dialogue. It will be interesting to experiment with this new medium to see if it is really better than Quora in its design.

[to be continued . . .]

by Adam Kazwell

Branch isn't a direct Quora competitor, but questions are shared and conversations are started in both places - even if they take on slightly different forms. There's a limited amount of participant attention to go around and they'll definitely be competing for that.

The best conversations occur when the right audience is in the same room - and I view Branch and Quora as separate rooms. Even when Branch was just in a private beta, I was starting to see similar conversations on both services - and little to no overlap amongst the participating audiences.

It will be interesting to see how the allocation of attention amongst the relevant and reputable sources shakes out over time.

by Josh Miller

Despite the diversity of spaces and mediums available to us, I would argue that ideas are still, for the most part, illiquid (online).

While interning for Senator Feinstein, in Washington D.C., I read Politico religiously. But I found myself without a medium to express my thoughts about what I read. The comment sections were chaotic, Facebook is for party photos, I didn’t have Twitter (even today, my Followers care about tech), Forums are archaic, and email is a todo list.

There are many spaces to share ideas online but very few to exchange them. Sure, I can tweet and receive @replies. Or post on Facebook and accumulate comments. But are those audiences really my intended buyers? Are those the right marketplaces for what I am trying to sell?

A lot of times, yes – which is why those platforms are so massive. But not always. And there is a huge opportunity for services that fill the remaining gaps.

The Facebook IPO is melting, LinkedIn is stagnant, and Twitter is under fire by developers. New platforms like Medium, Branch, Zerply Converse, and Svbtle are popping up everywhere, with an entirely new model for social interaction.

Instead of creating profiles, "The new social" seems to be more content-focused. Zerply and Branch have been pushing really hard on getting designers/devs/writers to talk about nontrivial industry issues, and Svbtle is curating some of the best writing in the world. HN and Reddit help everyone else discover awesome content across the world.

It begs the question – where is social media going? What will the landscape look like in two years? What are the advantages or disadvantages from this radical change?

by Wells Riley

Whenever I visit Quora, I always see great content from you folks!

With that in mind, I was hoping to hear your insights on what makes Quora so great? What do they do right? What keeps you coming back? Most importantly, what do you think Branch can learn from their product?

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, and feel free to add anyone else!

Scoops seem to be a huge deal in the media world. They build brands and boost page views. But as a consumer I don't particularly care where my news originated, I just care that I get it and understand the significance of it.

Is it possible that the power of 'scoops' will diminish with the rise of social sharing platforms like Twitter and Facebook? Or am I missing the point altogether?

Two of my recent blog posts on the same topic:

The state of RSS
http://web-wanderings.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-state-of-rss.html

Is RSS free?
http://web-wanderings.blogspot.com/2012/08/is-rss-free.html