@Swell
The Swell Team
@Swell · 1:03

Focus Group: Your Input Is Needed

Hi, this is Deborah from Swell, and thanks so much for being part of our early Swell users. It means so much to us. And since we're in beta, we're taking in all kinds of feedback to improve how Swell works for everyone. And we've got one very specific a question for you to answer about user activity. You see people clearly love listening to various small conversations, and the data shows that

Thank you for your feedback about this one question #feedback #swell Your voice matters to us🙏

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@Mtwadamela
Mtwadamela Ijogo
@Mtwadamela · 1:22
A lot of people just think about the world in terms of how they want it to be, which is cool, because we all want certain things. But then we have to balance that with the way the world actually is and the way it's always been. So that's just my two cent on it. But I mean, if you want to encourage people to just speak openly, then just let them know that they can speak openly without any fear of any type of consequence
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@Danny
Danny Moynahan
@Danny · 2:02

Is that your final answer?

Deborah, I had a couple thoughts in response to your question and the first one is me talk good English. One day I realize I'm a little selfconscious about recording my voice. It usually takes me a few takes to get it right. This is really good practice for me. Swell is so there's that that slows me down as far as posting a response
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@Swell
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15

Welcome to Swell!

@cpost17
Caron Post
@cpost17 · 0:33
For me, one reason that I don't jump in is I'm actually not really a talker in almost any realm of my life life. I like to listen, and that really encompasses a lot of who I am. So I think that's the main thing for me. Bye
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@Riki
Erika Schon
@Riki · 0:39
I think that people hesitate to record their thoughts for the same reason they hesitate to write down their opinions because they are then accountable for what they say or what they write right. Most people would rather step back than be responsible for what actually comes out of their mouth. Swell encourages you to be thoughtful and intentional in what you say and maybe even to think before you speak because so it is a wonderful practice to encourage. And I'm excited to continue with the progress of this initiative
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@shammi
Shammi Mohamed
@shammi · 1:15
Then go and redo that and you only have so many retakes before you either drop it or just move on. So from that standpoint, an editor would go a long way in helping helping you capture those instead of really good points that you made and then say, like, oh, I didn't like what I said after that. I think I was off topic. So let me go back and then just continue from there
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@Dance
Holly Rothschild
@Dance · 1:02
But I was trying to be thoughtful and intentional. And then as I was thinking, my palm pressed pause. So this is what happened. So maybe it would be nice to go back and listen to if I need to redo this. Okay. Thanks
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@Poorna
poorna unni
@Poorna · 2:15
Like, for example, when you're traveling or when you're in a crowded room or if you have kids playing around, then it becomes more difficult to record, whereas it's easier to type at any place. So recording is an issue, and I find it easier to respond to threads because it's easier to look at those threads which are interesting, which you can contribute to. Whereas if I had to make a new thread, then I would think about what is interesting. Will people respond?
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@ItsVivek
Vivek Hari
@ItsVivek · 2:54
So this is more of a content creation platform, whereas in most of the other social media platforms that I'm on, I'm more of a content consumer sharer kind of a role rather than producer. The third thing is that third point that I like to highlight is if you look at general public, they tend to Ray. Even for TV, for example, you tend to just change the remote like four or five times
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@ItsVivek
Vivek Hari
@ItsVivek · 2:01
You get one of these phone calls, the chain goes off, then you will have to rerecord it. All of those are kind of hindrances, the background noise. All of those are kind of hindrances before you actually record something and post it. So this seems more of a very formal platform rather than which is a positive thing compared under differentiator compared to other platforms
@Neerja
Neerja Narayanan
@Neerja · 3:40
Because Facebook tends to be more enclosed, it's usually friend driven in terms of ideas. I would suggest that there should be some kind of notification. I know that you have notifications, but of maybe topics that we can flag
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@Neerja
Neerja Narayanan
@Neerja · 1:23
Sorry, I wanted to add one more thing, which is Privacy. I think that sometimes people are maybe reluctant to put forward what they think or feel, particularly on issues that they may want to weigh in on. But they feel like we don't want to be screenshotted in an audio sense
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@shammi
Shammi Mohamed
@shammi · 1:59
Yes, I've been a big proponent of trying to provide some form of a conversation editor so that it allows you to better edit your speech before you post it. But along those lines, simple smart tools with the conversation recording process will go a long way. One idea is try to detect silences and do a good smart job of just editing those away. So what that means is I don't have to necessarily hit pause, think and then hit pause and continue. I could just start talking
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@AnimangaNation
ANIMANGA Nation
@AnimangaNation · 3:22
They are afraid that when they say something or they respond to a political point or something that's very controversial and they don't get a response or a reply or a thumbs up. They feel that they said something wrong or nobody was interested, and they feel that their voice is not heard and they feel that their voice is actually irrelevant when that might be not the case
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@RayRenati
Ray Renati
@RayRenati · 1:34
I'm not sure what else you would do, but maybe there are things to enhance that and make it more obvious that people can do that, and then maybe they would be more likely to participate. Okay. Thanks a lot
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@AbeMartinez
Abraham Martinez
@AbeMartinez · 3:14
So I guess since you're looking for feedback as the developer, one solution to try to get people to have have their own swell post and get them to be more active, I guess, is to somehow make the interface more supportive or encouraging. Not to say that it's not, but maybe have some sort of imagery or dialogue that comes from the app itself, which subtly try not to be too happy, go lucky or overt in the way it congratulates or makes them feel good about their word
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@FryedOreo
Dewuan .
@FryedOreo · 4:28
But once you start following people, that takes one more action to listen to a particular person, which you guys kind of beat over the head that you're going to have to follow somebody because you're going to keep telling a person every 5 seconds. If you listen to something or whatever or not listen to something. If you respond to it, they're going to ask you to follow them. And then, of course, responding to I think that probably happens the most is responding to post occurs
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Swell user mugshot
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