Jabbits - another video Q&A site
Just a couple of days ago while I was covering various online resources for getting your questions answered, a new site called CrowdRules was brought to my attention. This service was quite interesting because it offered answers to users’ questions in video form - an idea that I though was quite original, but also pretty bold, as it seemed to me that getting users to record answers in video form free of charge might be hard. Of course, questions can be asked in such a way that you can answer with an already existing video, which is usually the case on CrowdRules.
Well, it seems that they weren’t the only ones who thought of this idea. A new web service called Jabbits has launched today, which is also a questions & answers site in video form. However, the focus here is on users actually recording video answers instead of merely linking to some videos on the web.
Besides free, public questions and answers, on Jabbits you can also ask and answer questions privately. Additionally, introduces something called ‘research questions’ - good answers to those might even yield monetary rewards.
Although the service is quite new, there’s no lack of questions and answers, which means that the founders did their homework before the launch. The site already looks like an active community, and video responses definitely add a human touch. The biggest problem with Jabbits currently might be what’s essentially their biggest feature: the lack of text. Browsing through videos is fun, but it can also get tiresome, and getting answers in text form is definitely much faster, especially when the answers are simple and straightforward. I have experienced this myself: after seeing a couple of interesting questions, I was interesting in seeing answers, but I wasn’t willing to go through 10 or more minutes of video material to get it. Jabbits might do well to consider adding answers in text form, or at least the ability to comment/discuss on actual videos textually.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Stan,
Jabbits is very cool. They really thought out the whole idea of video Q&A, and do seem to have a very active community. And in terms of finding answers to the questions, most people seem to have entered adequate text to be able to find the answers in a text format. And hovering over the answers displays the text. Nice!
I wanted to clarify something about CrowdRules: while it can be used for video Q&A, it’s not only about questions and answers. Crowdrules is video contests with honest voting. Those seven words mean something if you run contests. Yet we built CrowdRules because contests have a lot in common with qualitative media research. And by creating a self-serve contest system that sits on top of a dynamic-panel system (patent-pending) we’ve opened up media research to everyone. And harnessed Collective Intelligence.
Contests - we call them “challenges” can be set up with an open submission period, a voting period, and a reporting period in as little as one minute increments.
So, sure, you can used CrowdRules for video questions and have the crowd select the best answers while CrowdRules keeps things honest. But we’re a lot more than that.
David Moss
CEO
www.crowdrules.com
March 28th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
@David: thanks for clarifying. I’ve tried to establish the connection between the two services, so i focused on the Q&A part.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Stan,
Thanks for your input on Jabbits. I thought to address your note on the addition of text-based responses and comments.
The text feature is one which we mulled over quite a bit as we designed our concept and site. As you note, we opted to focus our efforts exclusively on video Q&A, as a way to differentiate Jabbits as the leading destination for video-based recorded Q&A exchanges. We feel this is what sets us apart, and that people will find Jabbits a compelling alternative to text-only sites like Yahoo Answers, Amazon’s Askville, Microsoft’s Live Search QnA, and other text-only players growing the Q&A space.
The benefit for our users is that we dedicate 100% of our resources to improving and innovating the video experience - for example the montage experience David mentions above.
Having said this, we are vigilant in keeping a finger on the pulse of the Jabbits community - and will respond if our users consistently request the addition of a text comment feature. In fact we’d love any/all feedback and insights on this feature if your readers would like to weigh in.
John Williamson
Co-Founder
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