Cynics and the interested invited to nail down what, why and how Branch is good.

The first rule of a new social network seems to be to talk about that new social network. What's this doing that say a Google+ thread or forum doesn't do?

I think that having the freedom to choose who you converse with - free from the people who so often ruin conversations - will make a real difference.

That's a very good point! I've a blog post planned about #RWD - might use Branch to gather some ideas

Yes, the moderation of users is the key. A bit elitist but if done well can lead to quality discussions (one hopes.)

We tried Branch a month ago for a @storyful discussion but critically we kept the list of people internal and this led to an uninspired wank session.

I think you need opposing viewpoints for a good discussion. Much like a formal debate.

Agree. I don't think it should be filtering out opposing views. Just those who don't know how to behave like adults in a meaningful conversation!

So it looks like Branch allows a thread to branch out - so someone interested in one point can take it away without interfering with the main conversation?

Yes. It means that, when another stream of thought is triggered by a conversation, it doesn't have to derail the original conversation. Which is great.

So each branch requires an invite? Interesting

Yes. I think that the thread owner can invite whoever they want and then each invitee is able to add one further person.

This will definitely suit a more detailed and methodical approach to discussion. Certainly slows it down a lot from twitter often ADHD-style mode (guilty)

By the way, is anyone else getting duplicate email notifications when there are new comments?

Twitter has it's merits though. I'd like to be able to invite in a person from Twitter and include their Tweet that made me invite them.

Also a way to simply agree with a post. +1/Like/Twig. Forcing responses isn't good.

I can't seem to be able to branch. Did anyone see the thread on 'sentags' on app.net? Basically it was for tagging sentiment with + or - , so for example if you agreed with Paul's comment on liking post you might tag it with +useful and if you didn't you might say -bloated

I reckoned I was immune to new "social networks" however now I am using both app.net and branch. I like app.net because it is a nice experiment, and a potentially worthy one. *This* is more interesting because of the branching nature - I like having a traceable origin of a thing and I like being able to go off on a tangent (cough) from a thing too. It strikes me as a thing one can replace comments on one's blog -- "start a branch on this article", "join the branch on this article".

BTW - thanks Paul :)

Yeah, I've been thinking about it from the perspective of my website. The problem would be though the invite only nature of Branch. But, I guess you could create a link to the Branch and people can then ask to join. Now, if there was a way for a Branch to automatically get created for each new post on your site, that could be very cool...

I am currently repiping my blog to be on github with a jekyll engine, moving away from wordpress. Must experiment.

Oh that is interesting. Not to view Branch as a bunch of isolated discussions but as a web of conversations without the usual noise. I've felt tentative starting new discussions, because of the invite overhead, but if you treat it more casually, while keeping the invite quality high, it could (forgive me) go viral.

I'm envisioning a twisty at the end of a post title that would open a panel listing the branches that are discussing the post, accompanied by a + to start a branch yourself.

Once you are in branchland, then the prime brancher can add new buddies.

Consider the usefulness of having a number of branches hooked to a post or article - one branch could be a critique of the authors naive semiotic ontology, and yet another may consist of "that's what she said" quips. You get both bread AND circuses. +1

And of course the obligatory collection of animated gifs, which seems to be the content of many of the branches I've seen here already :)

Interesting so you moderate and curate your comments. You could have levels of branch per post. One level is "everyone" and you invite anyone who wants to comment. Then you go up a level to a curated discussion. Lot of management though.

Well I wasn't going to do any management at all - to hell with comments, frankly, but if people want to discuss a post, then a branch I think is a good place to do it. I think when I say "you" in the previous item, I'm referring to the commenter, or someone who has something to say, rather than the author.

As branch setter upper the commenter gets to choose people who might be interesting to have in the branch. Many of the "your ma" types will enlist other "your ma" types. And decent branches can lead to further articles.

But I generally wouldn't respond to comments unless they are regarding missing attributions, code updates, etc, i.e. substantive diffs rather than opinion.

Gotcha, that's pretty cool use of Branch. Let your commentators start discussions and self manage who is in them.

Exactly! Delegate the comment fest, then compare and contrast for more articles. It's a whole opportunity to go sociology meta :)

I wonder if @Branch needs a lobby. No invite required and then people can branch off to invite only branches.

Unfortunately I can't start my own branch yet. I'll need to be able to do that to test out the blog idea. The ideal world scenario would be an API of course :)

What happens if you try the bookmarklet?

javascript:(function()%7Bwindow.__branchHost__%3D%27http:

I find with twitter conversations you are at the mercy of a good clients conversation support. This might be a good place to jump out to. Plus, probably easier to retrieve.

Also, nice that it's not like a full on forum registration or something you need to go through just to take part in a single thread.

This reminds me a little bit of Google+ and the lengthy discussions people have in the comments of a certain post, but it's mostly a hit or miss situation depending on what's posted. On Branch, you're almost guaranteed to have an intellectual discussion regardless of what said topic is.

I'm hoping the Branch will be a way to bring back the intimate conversations that my friends and I would have in the comments of an item in Google Reader before the Goog disabled Reader social networking features last October.

If there was a way to start a private conversation that is not visible on the internet, to discuss a topic, it could then be taken public later and people who participate could still follow the line of arguments etc.

The reason for privacy first might be to brainstorm first a fully unstructured problem or question that is relevant to only a few people to something that is more of a half-structured but more focused problem relevant to many.

There's been similar questions asked about the (recently fully funded) app dot net. I love the fact that new services offer new choices and while there are similarities to other platforms I'm hoping that the differences begin to shine. I've been reading other conversations on Branch all morning and it seems to be a much simpler proposition than G+. Plus a timely opportunity to get out of my usual echo chambers. Thanks for the invite.

Every time something new comes along in the social media world I immediately start thinking of ways to use it in education. I assume this is because the last 17 years of my life have been consumed by school.

So what could Branch be good for? At the high school level, teachers can use it as homework. They post a question, article, video, etc and tell the students they have to have a discussion (details can adapt to topic/size of class/etc).

Students can start discussions with each other (either required for class or just to help each other study).

At the college level, professors can require that students create a branch on a relevant topic and invite industry experts to comment and add to the discussion.

Schools and teachers can use it to get feedback on what they're doing right and wrong. Parents, students, community members, school board members could all be involved.

One way to use Branch would be to present results from a survey you have done and invite people to jointly interpret the results using a true dialog approach rather than just a commenting approach.

So Branch would be good to for the synthesizing process of various inputs. You could have a discussion phase where you offer very different points of views, including opposing views and then you could agree to have a synthesizing phase where you design an output where you build on the various points of views.

Local governments could have online town hall sessions to discuss local issues and try to find solutions. They could invite people from neighboring communities to figure out how they solved the same problems. It's all about collaboration.

I like the education ideas by Charlie. It is a great way to ask people for ideas to improve. Asking people what we are doing wrong is less useful in my view than asking people what they would like to see instead and why. We are overtrained in pointing out defects, and need to be actively focused on design and ideas for solutions. Branch would be great for that.

I really like the visual separation of the various tangents of the conversation. A single timeline or even a tree-like structure a la Wave is too cluttered to really follow the various topics proffered. Seems like it might be slightly tilted towards a question/answer format but it doesn't seem so bad as to be useful *only* for that. I'd really like to see the ability to play around with the structure of the trunk and the branches: highlight some, subdue others, perhaps some sort of history rewriting a la git?

Although there are several avenues for online conversations — Facebook, Google+, Twitter, blogs, news articles — Branch offers a refreshing interface and focus on users that make conversations a first-class citizen.

It looks to me like it's a good place to have a conversation with people other then your followers or people you follow.

Regionalistaion is becoming more important concept after the failure of globalisation. It would be nice to discuss the global strategy of a company here and branch out the regional strategies around.

The notion of inviting people to a conversation reminds me of panel discussions. As long as the panel is the *right* collection of people, the discussion can be very interesting indeed (even as a spectator).

If you're into web development, I'd bet the following panels would be interesting to you:

panelpicker.sxsw.com
panelpicker.sxsw.com

but not everyone can be at SXSW (though they may try).

I think kevin is pretty much on point here. i really believe that the concept of invitations may be the most vital, most unique piece of branch.com

invitations given by participants to "outsiders" creates an interesting social contract for both parties.

for the contributor sending the invitation to a branch, the entire community can see who added a new contributor. this keeps contributors accountable to other contributors for the quality of the individual they bring into the fold.

for the individual invited to the conversation, the social contract inherently encourages them 1) to contribute and 2) to contribute meaningfully.
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each branch then, takes on its own culture of contribution and is perpetuated by participation.

brilliant

Building on Jonathan's point, if you receive a request from someone to join the conversation and you refuse it, what will be the consequences? Will this person start a branch and complain about an elitist approach by another branch? For example, a discussion about the Republican vs Democrat presidential programs or campaigns, may lead to opposing branches when requests to join are rejected.

How will people view rejection when they are excluded from joining a conversation? Will hire hackers to bring Branch down?

Fair to say we've taken this particular branch quite far and the number of people involved is not typical. Surprisingly we've built up an interesting discussion though. Branching off some of the discussions would work well e.g. @bou's question about rejection and retaliation.

I wonder who decided on the limit of 750 characters and why? What are the criteria for 750? Why not a 1,000. I, for one, would be happy to have unlimited or let's say 5,000 characters and I would be willing to pay for it e.g. $ 3 a month. I would also be willing to pay for the ability to have private conversations.

750 is most likely seen as an appropriate amount of characters to get your point across without being long winded. I Like the idea of having more space to wire but not so much i have to save it to Instapaper to read later..

Not sure panelists would want 5000 character posts, either writing or reading them. You want back and forth discussion with a bit more space than 140c on Twitter.

Private branches sound like a good idea though what real practical use would you have of them over other private chat rooms? Would it be you start private with the intention of it going public?

Good point Carlos. There is something to say for brevity

So...re: @paul's comment about this thread getting long and about points being worth branching off into new points. i just tried to take @bou's latest comment into a new branch and was informed that, because i was added by a user to this branch but did not receive a "formal invitation" i could not branch the conversations.

i get the quality control measure, but it leads to exactly what this has become -- a somewhat disjointed conversation that's beginning to feel more like a comment thread.

it'd be nice if any contributor to this branch could take another's point and create a new branch out of it.

@Paul, yes, I could see starting private to develop a certain line of argument with a small group of trusted people without being bothered by requests to join. Then take it public.

@Jonathan yes I believe that is down to the beta phase and it not being fully open yet. I was lucky to get a full invite at some point. Once it opens fully and they can handle the load I imagine any panelist will be able to branch.

A pity branches are not more visible. I branched Bou's original post above and it only puts subtle icon of my avatar next to it.

@paul - i'm with ya. manageable growth is important for them here...in day 2 of the public beta :)

that said, extending branches i can see really meeting two diferent use cases:

1) a post in the existing branch sparks an entirely new conversation, and that is branched out and grows

2) somewhat like [cough] facebook's newsfeed where a "branch" might just be a one-off comment on a post within the existing branch that a user decides to post in a branch to avoid interrupting the thread with a one-off comment

(this post is kind of a one-off comment that's interrupting the branch...)

@Paul, I agree. I think we are just seeing a glimpse of what Branch will be once open to the public. Thanks for the invite.

.@pomajp Yeah. I'm not going to have any idea if I will like Branch until I can create my own and then it will depend on whether or not it's compelling to the folks that I want to have the conversation with. The most important part of social media to me is whether or not the people I want to talk to can be easily enticed onto it.

I think there are two interesting conversations to be had:

1. What about rejecting a request to join (see above)
2. The conversation starter can end the conversation any time. That gives him/her power - albeit somewhat limited, because somebody else can decide to branch off and restart. But it sends an interesting signal if the originator of the conversation says: I close this down.