Many startups and companies have tackled realtime communications in a group setting, including Yammer, Google, Yahoo, and even Facebook. And now there’s one more jumping into the mix. Today, Y Combinator-backed Convore, the brainchild of Pownce founder Leah Culver, and Mochi Media developers Eric Florenzano and Eric Maguire, is launching a dead-simple group communication platform that is definitely worth a look.
Convore allows anyone to create a group (both public or private) and invite members to join via email. Invited users can click on the sent link (here’s a special TechCrunch group), and create a profile and join. You can also connect via Facebook and Twitter.
The interface is similar to a FriendFeed group, complete with realtime functionality. It’s part chat, part email thread, and part forum. Within a particular group you can create a topic, and start a conversation around that subject. The conversation is persistent so you can leave the site, then come back later and catch up on messages you missed.
For example, the current Y Combinator founders are using Convore within a private group. Usage of the platform surged during the night of the recent Yuri Milner and Ron Conway announcement regarding the Start Fund.
The incubator’s founders were first chatting on Convore and guessing what the announcement would be about. The conversation evolved to asking each other who had taken the deal and whether anyone wasn’t going to and why. The advantage of using Convore in these situations is that this type of chat-like communication and conversation is more suited for the startup’s interface as opposed to a mailing list or even a Yammer-like application.
Culver tells us that Convore is also designed to be a group discovery platform, where users can search for and find other topic groups that interest them. She adds that the founders took inspiration from FriendFeed groups and 37 Signals’ Campfire but wanted the application to be a mix between real-time chat and a forum that is easy to use.
If you take the time to use Convore, you’ll notice that updates are posted really, really fast. The platform is essentially updating in realtime. And what’s impressive is that the founders built all of this technology in-house.
Oh and in case you were wondering, Convore did accept the $150,000 from Milner and SV Angel.
