This post is about QiqoChat conversations which are similar to email discussion groups, listservs, Google Groups, etc.  One big advantage of Qiqo is that in addition to written conversations, many other collaborative tools for your online community such as live audio/video events, blogs, etc.

QiqoChat conversations offers some important advantages over standard email discussion lists (listservs) and regular forum software:

• New: Just like a standard email discussion list, members can subscribe to all messages, or if they prefer to reduce the number of emails they receive, they can choose to subscribe to just the top-level topics in a daily/hourly summary and then opt-in to further replies for any of the specific topics that interest them.
• A QiqoChat conversation also enables people to participate live on the Web, similar to chat.  New responses stream in realtime through the “Live Updates” section. You can click on a new update and jump right into that branch of the conversation.
• Participants will enter shorter, more direct replies on QiqoChat.  This allows for a more readable conversation, and one where each branch of the conversation gets attention and that important points are not lost by being grouped with others.
• Participants can reply directly by email.  Not all forum software has this capability.  Unlike with listservs, it’s easy to tell exactly which comment the new idea is responding to.
• Participants can co-write a summary of the entire conversation.  This can be used by a skilled facilitator to provide light structure for the conversation and to help latecomers get oriented to where they should focus now.
• You can embed these QiqoChat conversations into a live event.  This enables more efficient live events, because the conversation can get started prior to the event, and it enables the written conversations to get periodic surges of activity to breathe new life into them.
• Participants can bookmark ideas and return to them later.
• The facilitator can mark some ideas as “featured” so they show up in the featured section (in the search panel) and get more attention.
• There is a word cloud and the ability to search by many advanced options (most replies, most bookmarks, featured ideas, my bookmarks, my replies, etc).
• There is an easily searchable archive of conversations and responses in those conversations.  This is a tremendous improvement over standard archives of email listservs.
• There are many advanced email subscription options, such as subscribing to posts that mention specific keywords or solely the responses that are down just one branch of the conversation.  This prevents email overload.
• Participants can give a “thumbs up” the key ideas so that they rise to the top.  The facilitator can keep those totals hidden if he/she wants to ensure more objective voting if that’s useful on a topic.
• Each circle has a main conversation to which everyone is subscribed to a daily email summary, and all members can choose to start a new conversation if they have several related questions or conversation starters and want a dedicated space to dive into all of them together.