Transient Thoughts brings audience messages to life by visualizing chat comments as floating thought bubbles on the screen. As participants type in the chat, their responses appear dynamically, creating a lively and interactive display of real-time thoughts and reactions.
By default, Transient Thoughts captures and showcases each comment, making it perfect for spontaneous interactions, brainstorming, or capturing audience sentiment during live sessions. The floating bubbles gradually fade out over time, keeping the screen uncluttered while maintaining a steady flow of engagement.
This feature works best when you want to display quick thoughts, reactions, or open-ended responses in a visually engaging way.
In this guide, we’ll explore how to set up Transient Thoughts, customization options, how to run it, and frequently asked questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Does Transient Thoughts Collect Responses?
Transient Thoughts automatically pulls audience responses from the chat on platforms like Zoom, YouTube, and Teams. As participants type their messages, each comment appears as a floating thought bubble on the screen.
How Does It Work in the Presentation Live Screen?
Once Transient Thoughts is active, it appears on the Presentation Live Screen, visible to both the presenter and the audience.
Responses appear as animated thought bubbles floating across the screen.
Bubbles fade out over time, ensuring new messages remain visible without cluttering the display.
This creates a real-time, evolving visual representation of audience engagement.
Can You Customize the Thought Bubble Display?
Yes! You can adjust colors, fonts, and fade-out duration to match your presentation’s theme. This allows you to control how responses appear and how long they remain visible.
What Type of Responses Work Best with Transient Thoughts?
Transient Thoughts is ideal for capturing short reactions, quick thoughts, and open-ended responses. It works well for audience check-ins, brainstorming, or gathering live feedback during discussions.
Can You Pre-Set Answer Choices?
No, Transient Thoughts is designed for open-ended responses rather than predefined options. Unlike Power Polls, which categorize responses, this feature focuses on displaying audience messages in a free-flowing visual format.
What Happens if a Lot of Responses Come in at Once?
If multiple responses are submitted at the same time, all messages will appear as floating thought bubbles. They will naturally space out and fade over time to keep the display readable and engaging.
Creating a Transient Thoughts Interaction
To run Transient Thoughts during your session, you can choose to:
Add it to your presentation before the session
Create an ad-hoc interaction during the session
Using Quick Interaction Links
Adding Transient Thoughts to your presentation
Go to My Presentations
Click on New Presentation
Click on New Slide
Add Transient Thoughts
To learn more about how to create a presentation, click here
Once the interaction is added, customize it using the tabs on the right hand side.
Edit the heading, and configure its settings in the Content tab.
You can also edit the design of the interactions like the visualization colors of the thoughts, background color, heading color/font, and so on.
For a more in-depth guide on how to edit your presentation, click here
Alternatively, try our pre-designed Themes to completely change the look of your word cloud.
Click on Preview to see what it will look like during a session
Now that your presentation is complete, you can present it immediately or schedule it with a future session
Follow the instructions on how to connect StreamAlive to your preferred meeting or streaming platform, or even use it for in-person events.
Click here to get an in-depth guide on connecting to your preferred platform
What’s the Purpose of Creating an Ad-Hoc Transient Thoughts Interaction?
An ad-hoc interaction in StreamAlive allows you to set up and run audience engagement features instantly, without pre-planning them. This is perfect for moments when you want to capture real-time audience input in a visually engaging way by turning chat comments into floating thought bubbles. (If you’re new to ad-hoc interactions, check out this help article for more details.)
Why Use an Ad-Hoc Transient Thoughts Interaction?
While you can add Transient Thoughts to your presentation in advance, running it as an ad-hoc interaction gives you the flexibility to capture spontaneous audience reflections as your session unfolds.
For example, if a live discussion sparks unexpected insights or emotional reactions, you can launch Transient Thoughts on the spot to visualize those comments as floating bubbles. This fleeting, dynamic display not only captures the immediacy of the moment but also keeps your session fresh and engaging.
By using an ad-hoc Transient Thoughts interaction, you focus on capturing responses from a specific moment rather than pulling from the entire chat history. This approach ensures that audience engagement remains timely, relevant, and visually captivating.
Connect StreamAlive to your session
To learn how to connect to your required platform, click here
Once you’re connected and on the Presentation Live screen, click on the "+ New Interaction button"
Click on the Transient Thoughts interaction
Customize your Transient Thoughts
Here, you can edit the heading, and configure the thoughts settings.
Remember: Everyone can see your screen at this point so don’t spend too long on it. Alternatively, you can plan your transient thoughts question and settings in advance using the presentation builder method discussed in the section above.
Choose a theme [Optional]
This step is optional but if you choose to continue without choosing, the interaction will use your default theme.
Remember: Spending time customizing your interaction’s design in the middle of your live session is likely to be an attention killer, so consider using the presentation builder to create your interactions in advance if you plan on customizing them.
Once ready click on Go
Share the StreamAlive window to your audience
Ask your audience to start typing in answers in the chat
StreamAlive picks up these answers and powers the interaction in real time
Using Quick Interaction Links for Transient Thoughts
What’s the Purpose of Using Quick Interaction Links for Transient Thoughts?
Quick Interaction Links in StreamAlive enable you to instantly launch audience engagement features without needing to pre-set them in your presentation. With Transient Thoughts, this means you can activate the interaction with a single click, allowing audience responses to appear as floating thought bubbles on the screen in real time. (If you’re new to quick interaction links, check out this help article for more details.)
Why Use Quick Interaction Links for Transient Thoughts?
While you can integrate Transient Thoughts into your presentation ahead of time, Quick Interaction Links offer the flexibility to launch this feature on the fly—ideal for capturing spontaneous audience input without disrupting your session’s flow.
For example, if you're hosting a live brainstorming session or discussion and want to capture immediate reactions, you can instantly trigger Transient Thoughts. As participants share their thoughts, their messages appear as animated thought bubbles that gracefully float across and fade out over time, creating an engaging and ephemeral visual summary of the discussion.
By using Quick Interaction Links for Transient Thoughts, you ensure your session remains dynamic and responsive, capturing only the reactions from that specific moment for a truly timely and interactive experience.
Go to the Quick Interactions Links tab and click on “Show link” next to Transient Thoughts
Copy the link.
When ready to use, open the link in a new tab or you can paste it into your presentation file or Google Slides and so on.
A pop-up will appear where you can choose your required platform. Learn more about connecting to your preferred platform.Enter your session details and click on Present when ready
A pop-up asking you to admit the bot will appear (In cases like Zoom with the waiting room disabled, or YouTube/Twitch and similar platforms, it will join automatically)
Go to your live session and admit the bot.
Customize your Transient Thoughts
Here, you can edit the heading and configure the interaction settings
Remember: Everyone can see your screen at this point so don’t spend too long on it. Alternatively, you can plan your interactions in advance using the presentation builder method discussed in the section above.
Choose a theme [Optional]
This step is optional but if you choose to continue without choosing, the interaction will use your default theme.
Remember: Spending time customizing your design in the middle of your live session is likely to be an attention killer, so consider using the presentation builder to create your interactions in advance if you plan on customizing them.
Once ready click on Go
Share the StreamAlive window to your audience (if you haven’t already done so)
Ask your audience to start typing in answers in the chat
StreamAlive picks up these answers and powers the interaction in real-time
Learn how to use the Presentation Live screen to manage your interactions during your live session.