Jelly is a new knowledge sharing app from Twitter's Biz Stone
Back on April 1st of 2013, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone teased a new product that he was developing called Jelly. He didn't give much info on what it would be aside from saying that it would be "a tool that helps [people] do good in the world". Today, Jelly has officially launched, and it's a bit difficult to connect what it was said to be with what it is. Jelly is essentially Yahoo Answers for mobile. The other part of the teaser makes this a bit more understandable, because the name Jelly was described as a reference to jellyfish "because neurologically, its brain is more 'we' than 'me.' Also, for the past 700 million years, this decentralized structure has been wildly successful."
The idea of Jelly is that the service connects to your Facebook and Twitter to gather people you know (the app doesn't actually post anything to those social networks without your consent). You then take a picture of something and ask a question, trusting that your friends, or Twitter followers will have the answer. If they don't, the assumption is that someone in your extended network will know someone who has the answer.
Biz Stone describes the genesis of the idea in terms of trying to create a search engine for today's world. Rather than searching for information, Stone envisions Jelly as a way to share knowledge (which are two very different concepts). Jelly is assuming that the old idea of six degrees of separation has actually gotten smaller in the age of social and mobile, so it should be easier to find the person who knows the answer you need.
Navigating the app is extremely easy. When you see a question, you can answer or flip through the existing answers, a swipe down will get rid of the question and never show it to you again. Unfortunately, if you're going to jump in right now, you should be warned that a lot of the questions are tests, and the users are still trying to figure out how best to use the app. Additionally, there is no tagging system or categories, so you'll get questions on any and every topic. We would hope that in the background it has categories and it is learning what questions and topics interest you, but we can't say for sure. Also, there is no word yet on how the app intends to keep from becoming Yahoo Answers (aka a troll filled mess).
Still, it's an interesting idea and one to keep an eye on. Jelly is available right now for both Android and iOS.
source: Jelly
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed: