Engage in Meaningful Discussions with Tribalfish – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

There has never been an era when people had so many avenues to engage in conversations. Whether it is for personal or professional use, there is always more than one app to get the job done. One problem with these apps is that they are either too open or too closed. There should be the ability to change the conversation from public to private at will.

The transition should happen just like flipping the switch, without having to put so much effort. That’s when even the non-tech savvy can join the technology bandwagon. Tribalfish claims to make it ridiculously simple to engage in meaningful discussions on the web. It’s time to take the app for a test drive.

Overview

Tribalfish is a real-time discussion network for starting and participating in discussions based on topics, people and groups that interest you, in real time. This web app strives to be the free collaboration tool that enables a completely new level of communication between private individuals, membership groups, and the global community as well.

User Interface

Like the rest of the world, I too like to use the fewest number of apps possible to accomplish anything and this is more important when it comes to communications online. The more the number of movable parts and unknown variables, more is the chance of adding noise to an otherwise useful conversation.

User Interface

So, when I first learned about Tribalfish, I was curious. But when I landed on the app, less so. Why? For once, the app looks a lot like an older version of Twitter. But it is appreciable that they present the entire app for the user to see even before signing up. However, except for a quick look, you can’t do anything else until you sign up.

Ease of Use

After a fake one-click sign up using my Twitter account, I got full access to the app. I’ve to admit that even at this juncture, I was a bit sketchy as to what all the app can do. This largely is due to the absence of a comprehensive feature tour page. But, after the sign up on the third pane of the page, I was shown a welcome message explaining all the features. Ideally, this has to be done in the homepage, upfront.

New and Active Discussions

The good thing is, once you get started, Tribalfish is a delight to use and it doesn’t take much to figure out what each and every option in the app is for. For instance, head over to the Current section of the app to see all the new and active discussions. All public discussions show up here and if you opt for it, all your Twitter updates too.

Creating Discussions

Creating a Discussion

Initiating a discussion is as easy as joining one. Simply click the New Conversation button and you will have a WYSIWYG editor for composing the message. Then decide whether the discussion is open for all or invite only a select few to chime in. Hit Publish and you now have your own discussion platform.

You can start a new discussion by using a tweet as a starting point from the Current stream. Alternatively, you can use their browser extension to start conversations without having to open the web app.

Groups and Interests

Groups

Tribalfish is a great place to find like minded people and topics that might be of interest to you. As I noted earlier, a pretty self explanatory Groups section is where you should start looking. Use the search box at the top to find the group you are looking for in an instant.

Creating a New Group

Starting a group isn’t rocket science either. Add the basic details about the group and choose how open it should be. Even when choose to make the group to be public, you have got three different options. In the open mode, it is a free for all, anyone can open topics, read and respond to discussions. The limited mode is where all Tribalfish users can read and respond but cannot create new topics. In the restricted mode, you can grant specific permission to users to post new topics and/or respond to existing ones. And there is a ultra secret private mode as well.

Searching for Interests

When it comes to topics of interest, that is what the Interests section is for. You will have to search for topics of interests and the results were very relevant. A tag cloud in this section would go a long way, but at the moment, the search results do a bang up at discovery.

Final Thoughts

Tribalfish does offer a great fix to the broken communication channels of blogs, forums and even social networks. Social networks are best to capture live interactions, but fall short when it comes to deep engagement. Blogs, forums and websites on other hand fall short of enabling live, interactive discussions.

Tribalfish solves these issues by extending the quality real-time and regular discussions. But the app looks a lot like Twitter at first glance and since everyone lands straight on a conversation, there is a good chance of leaving the visitors confused. The developers need to set up a tour page or a product information page that isn’t a simple About Us page. That said, I will reaffirm that the app is simple to use. Really, really simple!