Twitter founders
Biz, Ev and Jason were the founding team behind Twitter and it looks like they are back. The Obvious Corporation is their new venture that has a small portfolio of companies all looking at a new vision for how we can publish content. Why should we care? Well when the team that launched blogger which helped bring blogging to the masses and then Twitter which has gripped the whole world do something, then you need to sit up and take notice.
Most of the companies have just the most basic of sites outlining their vision but you can enter your details requesting access to the beta versions when they are ready to let you. I would recommend all PR professionals to do this as I am a real believer that you need to understand these new tools and their potential value for clients as soon as possible. There is nothing worse than being in a meeting and the client asking you what you think of X and not being able to at least offer the most basic of opinions.
Of the new projects they are involved with the following three are the ones that I feel communications professionals need to take a look at.
1. Medium
2. Branch
3. Lift
Medium
I first came across this yesterday when I saw Nevile Hobson Tweet about it so decided to investigate. It is a new publishing platform that Obvious have built from scratch. Believing that media can be better Medium has been designed to allow people to choose the level of contribution they prefer.
At present most people simply read content and state if they like it. By posting on Medium all posts are organised into collections which are defined by a well designed theme and a template. Users don’t need to worry about building an audience to get their content seen or the stress of having to blog regularly to keep readers coming back.
Collections can be about anything. The examples listed on the site as crazy stories and nostalgic photos give you a sense of what to expect.
To me, it looks a bit like a cross between Pinterest and WordPress but it is the fact that they are taking time to make it look good that grabs my attention. People want beautiful design. It is important.
Branch
Having looked at Mention I decided to check out the other tools and next up was Branch.
Branch at first glance feels a bit like a more functional and better designed Google+. It allows you to grab anything from the web or just jot down anything on your mind and talk about it with anyone. Anyone can join your conversation and contribute to it.
They aren’t prescious about where Branches can be placed and you embed themto your personal blog, like a Tumblr or WordPress, or in a proprietary CMS. How about Twitter? It looks like a great tool to build conversations around great content on Twitter. Using its bookmarklet you can take conversations from Twitter to Branch in just a few clicks allowing the conversation to be expanded with more characters. You get more characters and less noise. We They also grab the tweets and add everyone who was @replied in the thread.
Out of the three products this one excites me the most as it feels like an extension of platforms that all communications professionals are already using without having to have a completely separate space to manage. I like the thought of being able to take conversations off Twitter to expand smoothly and the integration with blogs are also a nice touch.
Lift
As with the others it is in Beta phase and you have to be invited to actually have the chance to play with it at this stage. It is an app that allows you to browse things that you want to do, add it to your list and check off the item each time you do it. It is built around the concept of habit where goals are broken down into tiny habits that are so small that you can’t help but get momentum to achieve your goals rather than just trying to do everything at once. I can imagine that this could prove popular in the lifestyle with keep fit fanatics or dieters. If you have clients in spaces where building momentum is a major consideration then this could be a very interesting app for you.
PR blogger Drew B has managed to get his hands on a beta copy and has covered his thoughts. Check out his blog over the next couple of weeks as I imagine he will continue to provide updates.
Tags: Branch, Lift, Medium, PR, Twitter
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