Some conversations are meant for a larger table.
I thought I’d share a conversation I had with Neil Cauldwell this morning. He is the founder of Nurph.com. Nurph’s mission is to “extend the conversation by chatting in real-time with your Twitter friends whilst your followers can watch.” I’ve commented to Neil about this in the past, so he reached out to me on Twitter this morning.
In my opinion, the best conversations grow organically on Twitter. [pq align=right]Conversations grow by interest, not by invite.[/pq] Right now, Nurph conversation can only grow by invite. As I mention in the conversation stream below, if parts of this conversation could have been easily and selectively shared out to our respective Twitter streams. Those overhearing and interested could have then easily joined in and broadened the conversation.
Take a few moments to read the conversation below and let me know your thoughts. Also, tell me which Twitter chat client is your favorite?
NeilCauldwell: Hi @respres |
09:25 | |
respres: Hey, I don’t have much time, but I thought I’d stop in. |
09:26 | |
NeilCauldwell: I was just watching that video you made a while back. |
09:26 | |
respres: Slow day? 🙂 |
09:26 | |
NeilCauldwell: Not a problem. |
09:26 | |
NeilCauldwell: I’m heading off for @London_Web soon too. |
09:26 | |
NeilCauldwell: Pretty busy today 🙂 |
09:26 | |
respres: Did you create this, Neil? |
09:26 | |
NeilCauldwell: @Nurph? If so, yes, I’m the founder. |
09:27 | |
respres: So, my question is this, how hard would it be to have the chat like ease that this provides, but have it go out to Twitter? |
09:27 | |
NeilCauldwell: Also I’ve chatted with a few social media enthusiasts recently and thought that @SocialMediaGang would be a good way to demo them to them. |
09:28 | |
respres: If I reply to you, it mentions you on Twitter. |
09:28 | |
NeilCauldwell: @respres there’s a possibility we could truncate each thing you say in an @Nurph room/channel and publish it out to your main Twitter feed. |
09:28 | |
respres: I’d like to be able to click on your respons above, reply to you and select whether that goes out to Twitter or not. The conversation can be contained here, but important elements could be pushed out to Twitter. |
09:28 | |
NeilCauldwell: It would need to work with the 140 char limit and we would need to make it easy for people to get in to the chat room with a clear link. |
09:29 | |
respres: It’s the only way the conversation can grow naturally. |
09:29 | |
respres: Yes. |
09:29 | |
NeilCauldwell: @respres would you want a join per remark or something like and on/off switch for publishing everything to Twitter? |
09:29 | |
NeilCauldwell: sorry, replace “join” with “option” |
09:29 | |
respres: And, as you can see, this is great with two of us, but even with three, some threading would be needed to make the responses align. |
09:30 | |
NeilCauldwell: @respres Interesting point. Have you used IRC at all? |
09:30 | |
respres: Yes, something like that. It could be global or it could be on an update by update basis. Some might not want to publish all. Quick yes and no responses could be contained here, but a response like this could truncate to allow for retweeting. |
09:31 | |
respres: Yes, I’ve used IRC. |
09:31 | |
respres: @NeilCauldwell so, I know I can mention you. But what if I just joined the convo from outside and was responding to a comment you made at the beginning? |
09:32 | |
NeilCauldwell: Yes, quite often people will immediately ask if @Nurph publishes everything they say in a chat room to their main Twitter feed and they seem relived when they find out it isn’t – but obviously that isn’t everyone! |
09:32 | |
NeilCauldwell: *relived = relieved. |
09:32 | |
respres: Threading is important in conversations with many people. |
09:32 | |
respres: Well, it depends on what they’re goals are. |
09:33 | |
NeilCauldwell: @respres how did you feel about IRC as a conversation platform? |
09:33 | |
respres: Meh. Similar weaknesses. Better than nothing, but didn’t provide the congruence necessary to chain thoughts properly. |
09:34 | |
NeilCauldwell: Have you tried Google+? |
09:34 | |
respres: A simple, “send to Twitter” option in the box and a “reply” button on each message here would be a great addition. |
09:35 | |
respres: Yes, I’ve been on it for a couple of weeks. They need some threading as well. 🙂 |
09:35 | |
NeilCauldwell: I haven’t used it much yet but don’t they have one level of threading per status? |
09:35 | |
NeilCauldwell: i.e. I publish something and it creates a feed? |
09:36 | |
respres: So, give me a way to reply directly to any comment in the stream, an option to send to twitter and truncate with a hashtag set by the admin of the room and I think you’d have something killer. |
09:36 | |
respres: Yes, on level of “thread” per status. Very hard to reply to directly to an earlier comment, especially in a long comment chain. |
09:37 | |
NeilCauldwell: @respres would you imagine a “Reply” button next to each remark in the timeline? |
09:37 | |
respres: And… as long as we’re blue skying this. If I’m the guy who started the room, give me the ability to publish this conversation to my blog in it’s entirety if I like. As a recap. |
09:38 | |
NeilCauldwell: @respres sure. The chat rooms belong to a Twitter account, e.g. @SocialMediaGang and they have access to the transcripts. |
09:38 | |
NeilCauldwell: And the rooms persist. They’re a bit like a home for each Twitter user. |
09:39 | |
respres: Yes, a reply button on each remark in the timeline. My response wouldn’t need to go under it, since it is in time, but there would need to be an easy way for me to see what that person was replying to without having to go back and read the entire stream. As more people come into the conversation, you want them to get context as quickly as possible. |
09:39 | |
NeilCauldwell: Same button concept for the “Publish to Twitter”? |
09:40 | |
09:41 | ||
respres: The benefit to you is that more people will discover Nurph. And it would allow administrators of rooms to decide if they wanted public, tweetable conversations. Perhaps that is set by the admin when they start a conversation and those in the room know, “this chat is public and tweetable” but another one here might be “private” |
09:42 | |
NeilCauldwell: Sure, thanks. |
09:42 | |
NeilCauldwell: Yes at the moment we have the @respres auto-complete and that seems to offer some level of reply direction – but someone could type three remarks in a row and you might not know which specific remark you are replying to directly, although thinking about it the content of your message might help determine that in some way. |
09:44 | |
respres: Yes, but you don’t want people to have to think that hard. |
09:44 | |
NeilCauldwell: I.e. I type “@repres, thanks for the remark” and you see the reply is highlighted and directed to you, but there’s no hard coded definition for which remark. |
09:45 | |
respres: Right. |
09:45 | |
NeilCauldwell: Did you have any thoughts on how we might visualize which remarks are directed to who? |
09:45 | |
respres: That last remark, since I just said “right” would not be sent to Twitter if I had that control. But it works here. |
09:45 | |
respres: There are several ways to visualize it. Does each remark here have a unique identifier in your coding? |
09:46 | |
NeilCauldwell: Yes |
09:46 | |
respres: The way that would be most similar to Twitter users would be to simply have a “view conversation” button that would expand the window so you could see the track of the specific replies. |
09:47 | |
respres: So, next to any remark, you’d have an icon to view the context of the remark and a way to reply directly to it. |
09:48 | |
NeilCauldwell: Gotcha. Did you have any thoughts on how that might flow in the context of a real-time chat? I was wondering if I might struggle to click the button next to the remark each time and whether or not there would be a quicker way without having to use a mouse. |
09:49 | |
respres: The best conversations grow because the conversation is being overheard. Not because you invite people. |
09:50 | |
hashbo is watching the channel |
09:51 | |
NeilCauldwell: Sorry I might have confused things there. I meant purely from a speed perspective, people are quite used to simply typing and hitting return when they’re in a chat room. |
09:51 | |
respres: re: quicker way, not sure. You don’t want to interupt the flow of the conversation. You could have three different people responding to three different things in a row. Pulling down the whole thread or moving a reply up in the timeline to the previous comment might disrupt that. Allow me to visualize as I need seems to keep the best of both words. |
09:51 | |
respres: wolds. |
09:51 | |
respres: Yes, I get the chat room analogy. But we’d have a few more people in here, with better ideas being shared, if it worked the way I’m describing. |
09:52 | |
respres: Or at least more ideas. 🙂 |
09:53 | |
NeilCauldwell: Yes it would be great to get more people in organically. |
09:54 | |
09:55 | ||
NeilCauldwell: @hashbo fancy joining us for a chat? |
09:55 | |
NeilCauldwell: @respres, @hashbo is working on an interesting new tool. |
09:55 | |
respres: I gather. I went and signed up to be notified. |
09:55 | |
hashbo: Didn’t want to interrupt you guys, plus was distracted scanning for fabric background images (don’t ask!) |
09:56 | |
NeilCauldwell: Excellent. I’m glad @Nurph could connect you that way! |
09:56 | |
09:56 | ||
hashbo: Any luck? |
09:56 | |
Nurph: Yes @NeilCauldwell, it’s great to hear that 🙂 |
09:56 | |
hashbo: 😉 |
09:56 | |
09:57 | ||
respres: I know it’s me in this small chat, but… |
09:57 | |
respres: Or at least I think it’s me. |
09:57 | |
hashbo: And hi all 🙂 |
09:57 | |
NeilCauldwell: Hi @hashbo |
09:58 | |
respres: Ok, guys. I have a 10am PST conference call. Gotta run. |
@NeilCauldwell says
Thanks for the chat, Jeff. There’s lots of great ideas in that conversation transcript and we’re looking forward to further thoughts from your followers and blog subscribers.
The official Twitter for Mac app and the web UI work well for me.