Congrats on the launch! I work for a video-chat startup as well, and although we’re focused on synchronous rather than asynchronous, maybe my perspective will be useful.
In the “Woice” launch-thread, I noted that the power of voice-communication is in its real-time feedback loop that is like a collaborative search algorithm for both identifying and solving problems. My concern is how to keep that algorithm operational while losing the efficiency of real-time feedback.
I think the answer might come from my latest Slack irritant — that threads are only one-level deep. A deep conversation is just as difficult to hold over Slack as it is in real life, as it forces conversations to be linear and single-threaded. Due to that, it is common to “lose the thread” of discussion.
With async communication, it is possible to have a multi-threaded non-linear conversation. While losing the efficiency of being real-time, nested asynchronous communication could enable a broader search space.
A few commenters have mentioned Loom. But imagine if you could reply to a timestamp in Loom with your own video rather than an emoji. In a normal face-to-face conversation, you would interrupt someone to make a comment or question, and this would often change the course of the conversation.
Although face-to-face conversation is on the surface single-threaded and linear, I think good conversations actually hide the non-linear threads in people’s minds as the discussion alternatives between meandering and refocusing, enabling a wide-ranging conversation where many topics are examined and ultimately synthesized. The original thread is never lost even as other threads of relevance come and go.
So that’s my two-cents and I hope it’s helpful: to keep in mind that synchronous communication is only apparently single-threaded and linear, and that when moving to asynchronous you might want to explore how to retain (if not amplify) multi-threaded non-linear communication.
Your perspective is helpful; thanks for sharing. That’s a good point about async opening up the possibility of multi-layer threads. We’ll consider that! We’d need to figure out how to do it in a way to help people not get lost. I’ll also think more about if there’s a way to somehow recapture the efficiency from real-time feedback in synchronous voice communication.
In the “Woice” launch-thread, I noted that the power of voice-communication is in its real-time feedback loop that is like a collaborative search algorithm for both identifying and solving problems. My concern is how to keep that algorithm operational while losing the efficiency of real-time feedback.
I think the answer might come from my latest Slack irritant — that threads are only one-level deep. A deep conversation is just as difficult to hold over Slack as it is in real life, as it forces conversations to be linear and single-threaded. Due to that, it is common to “lose the thread” of discussion.
With async communication, it is possible to have a multi-threaded non-linear conversation. While losing the efficiency of being real-time, nested asynchronous communication could enable a broader search space.
A few commenters have mentioned Loom. But imagine if you could reply to a timestamp in Loom with your own video rather than an emoji. In a normal face-to-face conversation, you would interrupt someone to make a comment or question, and this would often change the course of the conversation.
Although face-to-face conversation is on the surface single-threaded and linear, I think good conversations actually hide the non-linear threads in people’s minds as the discussion alternatives between meandering and refocusing, enabling a wide-ranging conversation where many topics are examined and ultimately synthesized. The original thread is never lost even as other threads of relevance come and go.
So that’s my two-cents and I hope it’s helpful: to keep in mind that synchronous communication is only apparently single-threaded and linear, and that when moving to asynchronous you might want to explore how to retain (if not amplify) multi-threaded non-linear communication.