Introducing Rushline

Anonymously follow people’s private conversations.

Today we’re launching Rushline, a fundamentally new kind of messaging platform for shared interest conversations with friends.

Why?

I’ve always had this idea there’s a way to connect the knowledge and intellect of virtually everyone on the planet, making it available to anyone who needs it. If we could do that, we’d have the collective know how to cure diseases, overcome untold obstacles, and understand each other better. But so far, this goal has been elusive for myself and others who’ve committed significant portions of our lives to achieving it.

I previously cofounded ITtoolbox, an online community that had millions of users and was named one of 20 companies to disrupt the information industry before being acquired for $59 million. We were successful finding a way to get people to share knowledge. As an early entrant in the online community arena, we had to invent our way through this over the 12 year period I was involved.

But I was disappointed to learn that less than 1% of people share their knowledge and insights in community models like the one we advanced (and that continue to prevail today), while 99% don’t. So I started asking those who don’t share, “why?”

Understanding the Problem

After speaking with many who don’t share insights online, I learned that 99% of us prefer going to select friends for advice instead of turning to strangers online, because conversations with friends are trusted and private (no reputation risk, no trolls and zealots). And when our friends ask us for insights, we’re happy to help.

This pointed to three problems I wanted to fix.

1. These private conversations aren’t optimized for shared interests, and there’s no way to get back to them later.

2. These helpful conversations aren’t available for others to learn from.

3. Most importantly, the best responses often could’ve come from people we don’t know, but we don’t get these insights in our private conversations.

Shared Interest Conversations Among Friends

We started Rushline to create a new kind of messaging platform. At its core, it makes conversations with our select friends easy, with just enough structure for high-value collaboration around shared interests.

Then we do something really cool that’s never been done before (for which we’ve received multiple patents). We remove personally identifiable information from your conversations and make them available to the public, then match relevant people to them who can help.

Rushline is a safe, convenient conversation platform optimized to talk about shared interests with trusted friends. All while safely opening your conversations to the best insights from people you don’t know!

Be a Fly on the Wall

There’s an awesome implication of this I’m most excited about. You can now be a fly on the wall, following private conversations among trusted friends as they talk freely about topics you’re interested in.

For the first time, you can get insights into private, candid conversations among friends who respect each other, on topics you care about. And you can even join in when you have something helpful to add.

Our Vision for Rushline

Our team’s vision for Rushline is a place where friends enjoy safely and openly talking with each other daily about things that interest them, from local news, to hobbies and work advice. All while effortlessly sharing their conversations with others who sometimes join along with the most helpful insights.

We’ll learn a lot by following these candid conversations and will feel good chiming in when we realize we have something valuable to add to discussions we’ve benefited from. We’ll even make new friends this way based on mutual respect around shared interests.

My hope is by achieving this, we’ll have taken an important step forward in the elusive challenge of connecting the knowledge and intellect of everyone on the planet where it can be accessed by anyone.

How Conversations Work

1. Someone starts a conversation with handpicked friends on a #topic they share interest in. No app or registration required for recipients.

2. Rushline alerts relevant community members who can see an anonymous view.

3. Friends talk freely, like in a private conversation. Community members can join in to add helpful insights.

Create conversation alerts to follow other people’s conversations. Only get notified about posts if an author meets a minimum level of experience.

You control your conversations. Turn on moderation for guest posts or remove any post after the fact, block users, and issue strikes to guests for disruptive behavior. Users with 3 strikes lose community posting privileges.