Feb 28, 2024
Introducing Struct: a feed-centric chat platform
Endless notifications. Lost insights. Redundancy. Distraction. Chat platforms play a huge role in digital collaboration, but they're increasingly detrimental to deep work and effective outcomes. Popular options like Slack and Discord are falling short. They create knowledge black holes, where staying up to date is time-consuming and finding what you're looking for is impossible. Real-time shouldn't mean real pain. Chat is conversation! It should be inspiring! It should encourage discovery, enrichment, and productivity, not indifference, agony or frustration.
At Struct, we’re rebuilding the chat experience from the ground up, guided by our CRISPY design ethos and a relentless pursuit of productivity. Today, we're thrilled to unveil the Struct Chat platform.
You can check a demo walkthrough or come join us in our Struct org here. We love to chat!
Let’s dig into the app.
Feeds and threads.
Not chats and channels
Using traditional chat channels is a hassle. We’re forced into clicking through multiple channels just to catch up on our team’s latest updates. Combine this with the always-growing list of new channels, and information starts to get really scattered. Deciding whether a conversation belongs in ‘Contracts’ or ‘Clients’, ‘How-to’ or ‘Getting-started’ can be confusing. In open-source communities, moderators work hard to keep conversations organized, while corporate teams often rely on self-policing, asking folks to "Please move this to another channel" and interrupting everyone's flow. This adds friction to our conversations.
On the other hand, Feeds have consistently demonstrated their scalability across numerous social platforms. People consume vast amounts of info during a quick scroll of their daily feeds (RSS, Facebook, X, IG etc.) Applied to chat, they allow you to switch from chasing updates by clicking around, to sitting back and letting the chats come to you. At Struct we’re exploring this concept to its maximum potential.
In Struct, every chat message belongs to a thread. Chats don’t get stuck in channels. Instead, any thread you have access to is displayed in a highly efficient feed. Struct has one of the fastest, most real-time feeds of any chat platform or social network, ensuring you’re always up-to-date on the latest conversations.
As new threads get created or older threads updated, they automatically make their way to the top of your feed. New chat messages pop-in to show you live activity within the threads. This makes Struct Chat a super-intuitive way to stay on top of daily conversations
Struct's live feed keeps you ahead of every conversation
This is great for when you step away. Whether it's a few hours or a couple days, catching up is really easy. Just look through the top N unread threads in your feed, and you're done. These threads could be spread across any number of channels or DMs, it doesn't matter. Struct's dynamic access control system will funnel them right to your feed. By bringing the latest updates directly to you, Struct keeps you informed without the noise, and eliminates the chasing or digging required by other platforms.
The chasing and clicking really adds up in other chat platforms
Your feed, your way
In Struct, you can create a custom feed to follow specific projects, teams, or tasks, isolating only conversations relevant to your needs. This helps you focus on the essentials, while skimming off the clutter.
Here’s a fun example: Want to align closely with your company's mission? Create a feed for your CEO's threads and stay in sync with your company's latest vision and goals. Jump in the conversation with the right answers and get that promotion you deserve. 💪
The possibilities are endless. What kind of feeds will you create? We can’t wait to find out.
Custom feeds allow you to quickly create different views into your team
Use tags for organization, not channels
Tags (aka hashtags) introduce another dimension of organization, allowing threads to be further categorized by topic, project, or any identifier you choose. Together, channels and hashtags create a dual-layered system that lets you tag, assign, and streamline any conversation. This turns your chats into a useful tool for project management, task delegation, and issue tracking. All without ever leaving the app.
Add channels to your messages to send them to the right people. Add hashtags for more context
Want some ideas? We use Struct as our singular place for tracking projects, resources, and tasks. I use #design and #assign/jason tags to mark threads requiring my attention. Our development team operates similarly, employing p0, p1 and p2 tags to set priorities.
Use a combination of tag filters to create really powerful feeds. For example, Manish, our Founder, created a feed called "Pending Tasks" to monitor our backlog. It tracks any_of p0, p1, and p2 tags, while excluding status/resolved tag.
User's can tag threads with channels and hashtags to stay organized.
Think through all the chat platforms you’ve used in the past. Can you track your entire company’s tasks there? I doubt it. Traditional chat is too chaotic for effective task tracking. Struct aims to bridge this gap, creating an all-in-one solution for team collaboration.
Dynamic access control
Struct employs a dynamic access control system, unmatched in the chat space. This system allows a thread to belong to one or more channels, or one or more members, or just yourself. More importantly, you can add or remove access at any point in a thread's life.
This makes threads more versatile than any other platform. A conversation can be accessible to multiple channels to ensure all relevant parties have access. Want to discuss the upcoming premiere of The Three Body Problem with both your @FilmFriends and @BookClub, simply @mention both channels in one thread to chat with both groups, together.
Looking to adjust your new business contracts? Mention your @legal channel and @derek-the-sales-person in the same thread, pulling in the right people for the job.
Dynamic access ensures conversations remain targeted and inclusive, removing clutter throughout your organization.
Search that
actually works
There's a peculiar kind of agony in knowing precisely where you left something, only to find it inexplicably vanished — a crucial idea now lost to the void. On chat platforms, this is all too familiar: you're haunted by a message you know exists, yet it dodges every attempt at retrieval, leaving sifting through endless, fruitless search results.
Find what you need, quickly, with Struct's instant search
Struct redefines search functionality from the ground up. Our platform leverages advanced search technology, merging the precision of keyword searches and vector embeddings with the intelligence of semantic analysis. This hybrid approach ensures that our search results are not just instant and accurate, but also deeply relevant to your needs.
With Struct, search is more than a feature — it's a foundation tool to better navigate conversations. Press Cmd/Ctrl+K to quickly find exactly what you're looking for: links, files, chats, all at your fingertips
Designed around AI
Struct generates a title and summary for every thread, so you can make better decisions on what to skim and what to skip. This empowers everyone involved with context and confidence, making it easier than ever to catch up, follow along, and engage in the conversation at hand. Summaries and titles update in real-time too, evolving as the conversation develops.
AI generated summaries add instant context to every discussion
Need answers fast? Structbot is your go-to. Since Struct search indexes past threads, we can leverage past conversations to help provide proactive answers and save you time. Using the power of GPT, Structbot gets the information you need, when you need it, regardless of who's online.
We use OpenAI's GPT-4 for powering both the threads and the bot. We've found GPT-4 to be the most accurate in our testing.
Structbot provides instant answer from past references and research
Want another life hack? Use Struct instead of using ChatGPT's interface whenever possible. You get the same responses, but now they're co-located with all your other conversations. This means you can reference the bot results together with your peers and further the discussion. Team collaboration meets AI.
Chatting with GPT doesn't need to be such a lonely affair anymore! Plus, it’d be cheaper than subscribing to ChatGPT individually. Win, win.
AI is at the core of what we're building a Struct. We’ve got big plans for Structbot, this is only the beginning.
Privacy. That's Struct.
At Struct, the privacy and permissions of your threads are always paramount. Our platform is designed with the understanding that not every conversation is meant for every eye. Our search functionality and Structbot respect these boundaries. When you search for answers or ask Structbot for help, you'll only see results from threads you're authorized to view. So sensitive information stays with the people it's meant for, guarded from unwanted exposure.
We also take your data privacy very seriously. Struct is a secure space for your communications.
Intelligently designed
The Struct app is the result of a meticulous design process, one focused on minimalism and efficiency. Our interface is deliberately subtle to ensure a distraction-free environment for work. It's completely brand-agnostic, free from any disruptive colors or logos.
We have lots of keyboard shortcuts for fast navigation, and a dark mode to reduce eye strain in low-light environments. We’re also committed to meeting users wherever they are — the app works on Windows, Mac, or Linux.
Unleash the power of conversation
Our vision for Struct Chat is clear: to create a space where conversations that matter can flourish. We're on a mission to enable better conversations for everyone, and the launch of the Struct Chat Platform marks an exciting step toward that goal. We can't wait for you to experience the difference.
Welcome to the future of real-time communication.
Welcome to Struct Chat.
Jason Dietrick
Design Lead
About the author
Jason is a seasoned product lead and design manager with over a decade of experience in Silicon Valley. He specializes in the development of memorable brands and products built through a combination of strategic thinking, enriched experiences and investment in each other. Having contributed to award-winning communication projects for elite companies such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Patagonia, Instagram, Pinterest, Lyft, and Stanford, Jason brings a rich blend of skills and perspectives to Struct.