
Thinkfuse’s Status Report App Inspired by Google Internal Feature - erin_bury
http://betakit.com/2012/05/15/thinkfuses-status-report-app-inspired-by-google-internal-feature
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nswanberg
Based on a past thread (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3531075>) it
sounds like Google discontinued Snippets, the tool that inspired this app. Was
it the specific tool that was discontinued or the whole process around the
tool? Why?

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snprbob86
Thinkfuse co-founder here.

I don't know if or why Google discontinued Snippets. Generally, we don't spend
any time thinking about Google Snippets really. It just so happens that the
writers really like to tie a story to Google :-)

Even when I was at Google a few years ago, it was clear that Snippets weren't
the right fit for all teams. Smaller teams sitting around a single pod of
desks probably don't need a tool for written status reporting. Larger teams
create too many individual reports, so that's no good either. If I had to
guess, the _extremely simple_ Snippets tool simply didn't scale.

That said, the key insight we gained from Snippets was when we viewed it
through the lens of "Social Enterprise Software". We were looking at products
like Yammer, Chatter, Jive, etc. And said "Do businesses want social for
social's sake?"

Ultimately, we've come to think of our business as "What would Microsoft
Exchange look like in a post-Facebook world? How would it work if public
folders were the default and private inboxes were secondary?"

It just so happens that weekly status reports presented a wonderful
opportunity: reoccurring, broadcast messages, and required by a manager. It
just oozes with potential for bottoms up viral distribution.

There's _a lot_ of depth to this idea of reoccurring, semi-structured,
broadcast business communication. Status reports, meeting minutes, stakeholder
updates, trip reports, and so on. While there are armies of tools for making
gantt charts and tracking work items, there are precious few for facilitating
the flow of information. Coupled with the simple fact that businesses have a
heartbeat measured by communication on some cadence, and you wind up where
Thinkfuse is going :-)

