Twitter is commonly used as a way to crowdsource answers to common questions. So it is probably no surprise that Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone yesterday launched his latest venture – Jelly.
Jelly is a mobile app (at the moment) that allows you to ask a question of your community and crowdsource answers. The focus is very much on real-time and also has multimedia very much at the fore with users encouraged to take a photo that will bring their question to life.
Think of it a bit like Yahoo Answers or Quora but with images and blended seamlessly into your Facebook and Twitter communities. Questions from your existing friends and followers are prioritized but you could be shown questions from users that are friends of friends too in an attempt to keep the service relevant.
In their own words:
“Using Jelly is kinda like using a conventional search engine in that you ask it stuff and it returns answers. But, that’s where the similarities end… Jelly changes how we find answers because it uses pictures and people in our social networks. It turns out that getting answers from people is very different from retrieving information with algorithms.”
There is a clear opportunity here for brands. Whether garnering opinions through your community focus-group style or using it as a crowdsourced customer service outlet, there are a number of ways this could be used to increase community engagement and encourage advocacy. UK retailer ASOS has already joined the service.
Have you used Jelly yet? We’d love to know what you think. Feel free to watch their introductory video below.
