Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams

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.

1. More personable 2. Ability to check on remote employees indirectly 3. Seems like it can lead to more meaningful company communication 4. I don't feel I need to organize a video chat to convey things that may be harder to convey via text. It's nice to have a quick option to record and send.

These are the items that are preventing us from implementation into our daily. We have a small team of 8 people (3 designers, 1 customer service, 3 operations, 1 marketing)

1. We'd rather have a one stop shop for our communication (ie. ability to send files & code corresponding with the video) 2. Currently just resorting to a facetime call or slack video call

Regardless - I'm still going to push my team to use this and get some more feedback as it seems your team is using it more frequently than slack.

ngould I'd love to understand this point of view. What are the pain points of the experience being disjointed between Loom and Slack for your team right now?