Sounds kinda cheesy right? Please let me explain. A fairly new service called Branch has come about which allows people to hold private discussion with twitter but without twitter.
Users can conveniently sign up with their twitter account or email and use the service. They can watch the discussion without contributing or they can ask to join which will allow them to contribute 750 character per post. Before joining the discussion they must submit a short statement to a member as to why they should be accepted to join the Branch discussion. And once a member they accept invitations and add others. Many of times I've seen discussions/debate take place on my timeline but they are broken up by other tweets, you could argue that the use of a hashtag would help to group together the contributions, however, the same hashtag could be used by twitter users not remotely involved or even purposely used to spam the discussion. Branch allows you to have greater control with its screening-like process.
I like the service it offers and I think it's clever idea. The way it seamlessly integrates with twitter helps it to be easy to use. You can also create a new Branch off an existing Branch, hense the name. It's probably easier to see rather than me explain it :/
My first and only (for now) Branch I had joined was What would a Web Church look like?
With the rise of social interactive tools (like branch) what would a church look like if it were without a local meeting place? How would this effect community? What are some other tools that could be used? Do you feel like this is where the church is headed?
Check it out if you wanna see Branch in action or even you wanna add to the discussion.
