The biggest indictment of Branch to me is that since they alpha/beta/gamma/episilon-launched months and months ago, no one I come across in my Twitter feed, Tumblr feed, RSS nor anywhere else uses it; it's something that seems deeply embedded in a Valley bubble. I am also dead-tired of promotional videos that in vague terms and promises make it sound like we're curing cancer.

The number of tools intended to "enhance conversation" are a dime a dozen, but fair or not, I think there is something to be said for traction and widespread use, even though it may seem like a chicken-and-egg problem.

If blogs and online publishers wanted to use the format, they would want to put it on their website directly for the ads, hits, and audience interaction, but Storify already accomplishes this to a large extent (barring any shut-down by Twitter).

It reminds me of the whole ~~social media~~ web 2.0 craze way back when.

There is also something weird about inviting people to listen in on a pseudo-private conversation. It makes it very artificial and staged somehow.

But hey, the logo is pretty cool. Probably one of my favourites out there.

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EDIT: If I were Branch, instead of promoting it as something generally applicable, which it is not, I would promote it as something targeting more niche purposes where it makes sense to use it and grow it from there and let people discover utilities slowly.

Another way to promote and develop it is as a GroupMe for Twitter, which by now is its own type of communication. As an addition to DMs and @mentions in your Twitter bar, you now have branches of conversations defined by the topic or group of people.

That kind of integration would probably lead to a Twitter acquisition, but that can't be the worst thing to happen to a company anyway ...

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The impression their website leaves users with is that this is something aimed specifically at self-important boffins and "thought leaders" - bloggers in realms Apple, tech, and Awl-ish dabblings. Exclusive online punditry circlejerk, essentially. The Davos of social media.

It just reinforces the idea that I am never going to use this, because let's be honest, I am not important/well-connected enough to get asked to join anyone's conversation - and I don't want to spam people just to try the thing out. It's as if it is a recursive start-up which has created a tool designed to let users talk about the start-up.

They should call themselves Recursive Corp instead of Obvious Corp, because it seems to have based its entire philosophy on its Valley-esque self-importance and -indulgence.