Grapevine // The Art of Conversation

Grapevine listed as one of the most useful applications for the health industry

2010-09-09T00:15:00.002+01:00

We are very happy to see that the people over at Medicine|e-learning, have listed Grapevine as one of the top applications for the Health Industry.

Here is the link if you would like to read more.

http://bit.ly/a9uzUN

Miss call me when you’re home

2010-08-15T12:49:00.003+01:00

That was the thing friends or parents would say after a night out and it shows use for the telephone without actually placing a call. This was just one of the thoughts I had after reading Clive Thompson’s “Death of the telephone call” in Wired (August 2010, US edition). There’s much more too, and I could certainly empathize with many of the reasons Thompson used to cite the death of the telephone call. I definitely use SMS, instant message or email much more than picking up a phone, but although I can see my own person use of the phone declining in-line with the data Thompson quotes, I don’t think it means the death of voice communication.

As a team member on GrapevineTalk.com, I’ve certainly been in conversations where we generally talk not about the death of voice as a communication medium, but a change in the ways we use voice to interact with others. Although I have a vested interest in discussing and promoting Grapevine as a tool, I want to put forward some ideas we’ve had and hopefully use that as a means to continue the discussion on what is a very interesting and changing area.

It would be understandable to make a connection between voice and the telephone call but we believe voice has a bigger role to play. To consider one of the points Thompson brings up, let’s look at presence information.

Thompson says that when placing a call, there’s no way of know if the other person is able to take a call, or even wants to take a call from you. There’s also no context, or agenda, beforehand to give the receiver information to help them make the decision if they should accept the call or not. However, with applications like Skype, or Google Talk, presence information is built in. I can see if someone is available, signed out or marked as busy. This still leaves the issue of subject context and willingness. With communication tools like Instant Messaging or email, the sender can type and send a message and the receiver doesn’t have to be paying attention to the message until they are ready to read and respond. With voice based applications, there’s no way, apart from voicemail, to “fire and forget” as a sender, and “read and respond” as a receiver. However, as Thompson points out, the general consensus is people don’t like voicemail.

One of the points that Thompson makes is that being interrupted by a phone call can be emotionally draining. However, an interesting side affect of this is that you have received an emotional response in the first place. I have often been a victim of a misunderstanding that occurs by text only based communication. There’s that often quoted research from Albert Mehrabian about percentages of communication (7% words, 38% tone of voice, 55% body language), and it’s that tone of voice and emotional response that we gain through voice based communications. If we can’t meet face-to-face because of distributed working, distance learning or for one of many other reasons, how can increase understanding and take advantage of tone of voice and emotion as part of the communication whilst not being interrupted?

At Grapevine, one of the ways we’ve attempted to deal with this is for the sender of a message being able to leave a message without requiring presence information, much like how you would send an email. As a recipient, you can control the information the Grapevine client gives you, choosing that messages are played in real-time, or that a notification of a new message has arrived, or just visual indication in the application so the user can check messages in their own time and respond when ready. Here we believe emotion and tone of voice is preserved, whilst not interrupting the user while they are involved elsewhere.

One of the reasons I tend to use email over a phone call is that I can take time to craft a response to a question. It still comes with Meharian’s communication issue of words only being 7% of the communication, but I tend to feel that I can explain and elaborate where appropriate. In a conversation over the phone, or in person, silences are not golden, but awkward. This leaves us to um and ah, or blabber on without us taking time for a considered response. One of the use cases we’ve always had from the start with Grapevine is a message can be received while the receiver is away from the computer, making coffee perhaps. They listen to the message when ready and respond after they’ve thought through a reply.

Although this interchange which may take seconds over the phone, can take minutes or even hours through a voice application like Grapevine. These messages can then be replayed so the conversation flows naturally to others who are catching up with the conversation.

What this all comes down to is that the telephone isn’t fit for purpose anymore. Thompson predicts that the phone call will become useful for longer, deeper discussions, while becoming less and less used for general communication. More conference calls then? It may not be just conference calls, but anyone who has worked in a distributed team will know the pain of trying to organise people across different offices, or even different timezones to get onto a conference call. With Grapevine, group communication is at the heart of the platform, and with the ability to catch up with messages in your own time, there’s no need to schedule a time to all be online using the application at the same time.

I still don’t believe that this means there’s no other place for voice. If you could use voice to gain the emotional context, without the need to be interrupted and throw in a sprinkle of presence and subject information, you can get the best out of voice communications. One final thought is where Thompson mentions that people have been known to use applications like Skype to have a persistent telepresence communication channel open all day. Using Grapevine, you an have all of the above advantages whilst also keeping a channel open all day, and this time a silent channel is not an awkward channel, where that may be the case with an open phonecall.

Favorite Quotes

2010-01-29T00:15:00.001Z

Theodore Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Who else wants a better way to communicate?

2010-01-18T19:37:00.003Z

Did you know that 75% of people will be members of a distributed team during their careers?

Working in a office with every team member is quickly becoming the exception, not the rule.

Do you have the tools you need to be successful? Can you communicate and collaborate effortlessly with your distributed team?

If you need a better way to communicate with your distributed team - give Grapevine a spin.

Why Start a Start-up?

2009-12-04T00:08:00.003Z

We get asked this question a lot. People say it looks like a lot of work, a lot of commitment and takes a lot of determination.

It’s true that when you are involved in a start-up, and especially a small bootstrapped startup like Grapevine – you are never really off the clock. Even when sitting at home with your family, you are still thinking of that new feature and future development stories or tomorrow’s meeting with a potential client.

So why go through it all? Why work basically 24 hours a day?

I have to admit there is the risk/reward thing. Do I want to one day play golf at a course that actually has sand in the sand traps? YES! - but that’s not why we are doing it.

We didn’t decide to sit around the table one day and brainstorm for a great start-up idea. We started Grapevine because in our previous jobs we were looking for a product that did what Grapevine does, and there were none.

The real reason we started Grapevine is because we wanted to use it, and turns out other people want to use it and see value in it as well.

We think Grapevine is a powerful group communication tool that allows people to be at the center of voice communication flows in the way that is the most effective and customizable for each individual, group, or team.

It’s that simple, and that’s why we built it. Sure, it does take some sacrifices and a lot of time – but we are also lucky to have fun working with great (and extremely smart) people and build the product that we and our users want it to be.

Working Up a Grap-petite

2009-11-27T11:08:00.013Z

We were thrilled to see Ralf test-drive Grapevine, and flattered that he described it as 'really cool" and "amazing". Ralf isn't frivolous with praise, and his compliments carry genuine weight.

Ralf clearly had a lot of fun using the service, and that's another thing we were really pleased to see. From the outset, we wanted Grapevine to be a place where all those things that make human conversation 'human' flourish. Things like spontaneity, serendipity, expressiveness... and certainly fun, too.

One interesting aspect of the post is the reference to naming that will initially be new to most of our users. This is something we did not choose to do lightly, but in the end felt it was justified on balance. In particular, in the case of 'vine', we wanted a really snappy name that captured a combination of a group of people and a topic of conversation... where both the group and the topic could be large or small, dynamic or static, long or short lived. This versatility is the very foundation of Grapevine. We toyed around with somewhat established and well understood names like 'channel', 'room', 'conversation' and so forth, but found them all to carry too much connotational baggage. In the end, 'vine' won out for us, but as always we're open to feedback from you all and will be sure to take on board any recurring themes!

We are also grateful for suggestions around making the live / 'tuned in' aspects of Grapevine more obvious, and blurring the boundaries between real-time and 'not-quite-real-time' experience. It is helping us shape a couple of features we are planning for the very near future.

Grapevine represents a concept that is a little different to most voice and message based applications on the web today. Although new things can be exciting, they usually require change - and change too can be exciting, but also difficult and challenging. Our ultimate aim is to create a product that delights users and makes their lives a little easier, and we recognise that we will only succeed by putting you, dear user, at the heart of everything we do. With your support, and constructive feedback like Ralf's, we will get there, together.

Welcoming You Back For the Very First Time

2009-11-09T21:30:00.004Z

For the past few mounts, Team Grapevine has been harbouring a secret, and we're thrilled to be able to finally let you in on it.

Shortly after we launched the initial Beta of Grapevine, we took a clone from its best bits, pruned the bits you told us you weren't crazy about, and added a sprinkle of our Special Sauce (the spicy one).

And thence a new Grapevine grew, bigger, stronger, richer. Free of genetically modified junk, just natural growth, thanks in no small part to the hundreds of you who provided direct and indirect feedback on our first Beta.

And we've just brought it out for all to see.

So what's changed, and why?

Well first off, Grapevine has changed attire to become an application you install on your computer. We are all Web lovers, and were somewhat reluctant to leave the cosy ambience of a web browser... but found we had to in order to provide you with an always-on, finger-on-the-pulse experience. No longer do you have to 'remember' to navigate to Grapevine. The app will start itself up for you, and will let you hear things you want to - when you want to.This is a key part of putting you in the place where conversations flow by.

We have also taken the opportunity to revisit how you interact with vines and other people. You simply 'follow' vines that are important to you, and can then choose whether each one should be audible or muted. Your 'Followed Vines' view lets you hear things of interest almost immediately, across all your vines. You discover new vines through the Vinery, which is fully searchable and browsable.

You will encounter three types of vines - open, public and private. An open vine is 'open' to everyone - anyone may post, or listen to existing posts. A public vine can also be listened to by anyone, but only members can post. And a private vine is just that - private to its members, both for posting and browsing.

In all honesty, this is just scratching the surface. There are numerous other changes. Our aim has been nothing short of turning Grapevine into a unique voice communication experience. One where you can readily interact with others, on your own terms. You can remain tuned into your very own stream of conversation, discussion, opinion, sweet nothings, rants and raves. You can overhear things that make you go 'aaah', 'uuuggghhh', 'hmmm', 'grrr'... and elect toreadily share these emotions with your cohorts, or keep them to
yourself. You get to pick whether you engage in real time, in your own time... or not at all!

Hopefully we've managed to whet your appetite a bit. Watch this space for further news. And please do let us know what you think... We are in effect creating a new medium, and we know that it takes time to get everything just right, so this is one discussion you'll find us following with undivided attention!

Keep talking, and catch you soon, on a vine somewhere near....

Grapevine meets HTML5

2009-11-01T14:39:00.008Z

HTML 5 is starting to get some attention on the web as the browser vendors start to implement and release features based on the HTML 5 spec. One new media element we are getting excited about is the audio element. This will enable native support for play back of audio in the browser, and I don't mean like those sites back in the 90s that played embedded midi files in a loop.

According to Thom Holwerda, we can expect support for all major browsers apart from Internet Explorer almost straight away. Microsoft have endorsed the new elements, but have not released anything at the time I'm writing.

For us, it's now a matter of how we support HTML 5, and we've made steps to do just that by ensuring that all posts are available in a variety of formats. HTML5 Doctor gives a nice breakdown of what's supported, and essentially it comes down to MP3 and OGG. We already supported FLV for Flash, and recently we've added MP3 and OGG.

What's exciting for us, is that this means it will be even easier to keep track of your vines, and the recordings within them, whichever way the specs and codecs go. We're looking forward to seeing what can be done with this new feature, by us and by others.

I've included a little snippet below that will work in Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer. By giving the src element within the audio element the browser can choose which audio codec to use, either mp3 or ogg. If the browser can't handle these codecs it runs the remaining code within the audio element. In this case, it uses the open source Flash audio/video player, Flowplayer. This depends on you transcoding the audio source, but if you're using Grapevine, you'll get all of these out of the box.


<script type="text/javascript" src="flowplayer-3.1.4.min.js"></script>
  <audio controls autobuffer>
  <source src="elvis.ogg" />
  <source src="elvis.mp3" />
  <!-- now include flash fall back -->
  <a href="elvis.flv" id="player"></a>
  <script>
    flowplayer("player", "flowplayer-3.1.5.swf");
  </script>
</audio>

Cheers

N.B. Thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexnormand/2375481923/in/set-72157606769903058/ for the Create Commons License of the cool shot above.

Grapevine Hearts iTunes

2009-10-26T07:55:00.007Z

Here over at Grapevine HQ, we want to take Grapevine out of just the browser and put the conversations where the people are. One step towards that recently was the introduction of iTunes compatible RSS feeds. This enables you to download your followed vines and sync them to your iPod or iPhone and catch up with the conversation where ever you are and when ever you like.

It works like this, from the vine you wish to put into iTunes, click on the menu next to the vine name in the application and then select 'RSS for this vine'. This will open a web page in your browser which is the RSS feed for the vine. If you have a newish browser you may be selected with the option to open that page in iTunes. Select that and watch the magic happen. iTunes will automatically subscribe you to that vine and retrieve the latest post. You'll have to configure iTunes if you want them all, or you can do that manually.

The plug in your device and select the vine as a podcast you want to synchronize.

Now you can listen to those conversations in your planes, trains and automobiles.