People have conversations all the time online, but they don’t necessarily reflect the best aspects of real life conversations. We wanted to change that - especially when it comes to having conversations using your mobile phone.
Here are some of the guiding principles we used when thinking about how and why we created Shout.
1.) Real life conversations typically have a "spark" - a conversation starter.
This might be something that you saw, an article you read, or an experience you had.
Photos are the best way to capture these different types of conversation starters on your mobile phone. The camera serves as creative tool for expressing where you are and what you are doing even faster than text.
Screenshots are a low friction way to help share content from other sources - like the web, social networks, or media sources.
2.) The best conversations are often with a small group of people who you think are interested in the topic you want to talk about.
Services exist to broadcast your thoughts and have a public discourse like Facebook or Twitter. But there are lots of situations when you want to narrowcast to a select group of people.
Shout makes it really easy to select the people who you want to have a conversation with and do it privately. No need to manage circles, lists, or groups - just pick people and go.
3.) Great conversations are interactive and don’t always involve speaking.
People pause to think, use facial expressions to convey emotion, and change their tone to reflect their thoughts.
To help express these more nuanced methods of communication, we make conversations more then just simply chatting about something. Shout lets you “like” a comment to acknowledge it and send a emoji-like stickers to be more emotionally expressive.
We are just getting started with Shout. Stay tuned for more exciting things to come. Be sure to download the app if you haven't.