I remember thinking about this exact problem (branching conversations, in particular audio), but I couldn't find a reasonable consumption pattern.
Looking at how I consume podcasts, it's a completely passive experience - I probably have something in my hands and can't talk. Choosing paths is just too much interactivity.
I figured that maybe that's just a wrong mode to look at it and people can consume the whole thing differently, not as a podcast. Ok then, I'm an obsessed power user/fan, I consume the whole thing, all branches. Given how human attention/memory works, that means returning to earlier parts of recording after listening to branch at least some of the time, multiple times experiencing 'where did we start? Let me go back a bit. Oh, that topic was the starting. Let me forward a bit now that I know it'. That's horrible, I think. You were at least more reasonable than me when thinking about it and decided to have only 1 level of branching ; )
In similar vein, what happens when comment gets added after I already listened/how do I know which parts are 'the definite experience'? Unlike previous two issues, those questions are answerable, but I'd still like to hear what you think the answers are!
I think there can be several ways to use it. I think passive listening can and for most will be how it's used. But people who want to discuss and "add to a conversation" will have the option.
Definitely will be modifying the experience to be fully handsfree.
I think the context issue is what can make this actually work or not. Currently it's not built out but my thinking is to have a short context of what was commented on i.e. 10 seconds before the comment. That way you can jump back into the conversation from a new comment left.
I think the context can also be determined by how long it's been since you listened to the last audio - meaning a comment left after a week might have 60s of context vs a comment after 10 mins might just have 5s.
And yes, the UI isn't great at showing what you already listened to now but that needs to be obvious too.
General tendency for internet content tends to be strong separation between creators and consumers, in particular limited interest of consumers in other consumers (think twitch chat. Each message is valued very little compared to the streamer, to the point where they always read out messages they respond to). That means unless there's something nudging people to default outside of central path of audio, adding to conversation isn't part of canon content.
There could be a way for responder to signal where the content they are answering starts, with some sort of fuzzy automation in the future. I have strong doubts about the actual experience of this for the listener, but maybe that's solvable.
I meant situation, where I already consumed the whole recording, but it gets response later on.
I do not have mental model for context being logically attached to the response. Do you think about it as response+context being a valid piece of content?
Yes I think of it as a response being a valid piece of content. For example if you recorded the above message in audio and I wanted to respond after your first paragraph then my response maybe:
[context] (your audio) "adding to conversation isn't part of canon content."
(my audio) "I disagree I think adding to the conversation can be just as valuable especially if content is filtered correctly meaning you'd only see comments from people you followed"
Something like that. But yes I do agree this is a huge issue and basically if it can't be solved then the app will fail.
I think the use case won't be to replace a typical podcaster but imagine if we're both in a group and discussing a podcast on the podcast - that's more how I see it
I could see it working a bit better if the original podcast had fixed points where they allow comments. So they can say something like "ok now we will open this section up for comments, and afterwards we'll continue on to...".
Then as comments come in they can follow a dialog structure, or the original poster can come in and add some clarification as a reply.
edit: If there are a lot of comments coming in, you could set it to autoplay only the top X comments and their replies or whatever.
For reviewing afterwards, it would also be really helpful to have an auto transcription so you can quickly scroll through for anything you missed or want to go back to.
I remember thinking about this exact problem (branching conversations, in particular audio), but I couldn't find a reasonable consumption pattern.
Looking at how I consume podcasts, it's a completely passive experience - I probably have something in my hands and can't talk. Choosing paths is just too much interactivity.
I figured that maybe that's just a wrong mode to look at it and people can consume the whole thing differently, not as a podcast. Ok then, I'm an obsessed power user/fan, I consume the whole thing, all branches. Given how human attention/memory works, that means returning to earlier parts of recording after listening to branch at least some of the time, multiple times experiencing 'where did we start? Let me go back a bit. Oh, that topic was the starting. Let me forward a bit now that I know it'. That's horrible, I think. You were at least more reasonable than me when thinking about it and decided to have only 1 level of branching ; )
In similar vein, what happens when comment gets added after I already listened/how do I know which parts are 'the definite experience'? Unlike previous two issues, those questions are answerable, but I'd still like to hear what you think the answers are!