[tmail21]

I don't believe that one should try to create a single tool that covers both synchronous and asynchronous. Their UX is too different.

It seems to me a better idea to create an asynchronous deep collaboration tool and integrate it with synchronous tools like Slack.

The bigger question to me is what should an asynchronous deep collaboration tool do (if anything) beyond first-class threads.

In my mind the opportunity lies on three dimensions

1) Bringing updatable content and structure to threads. This makes threads vastly more useful for real collaboration (not just communication).

2) Making "catchup" much more efficient as this is the main problem with email.

If you think of one of the most successful asynchronous collaboration approaches, it's source control like git. The key thing that these tools to is make changes "diffable". That allows users to work at completely different points in time and still easily "catchup" with what's changed.

3) Allow regular users to easily convert unstructured one-off threads to semi-structured template threads. This naturally and gently moves teams to greater process-orientation.