BrainRepublic.com Presentes Conversation Based Q&A Social Networking
Over the last few years we’ve seen the web give birth to many different types of social networks, providing more ways than ever before to reach out and contact whoever you want. BrainRepublic takes the social networking concept of easy and open communication, then expands on it to present a totally new form of social media, a real-time, web based, communication network through which members can share their skills and knowledge to help people with their problems.
The way BrainRepublic works is that upon joining the site, new members are encouraged to fill out a profile which details what areas of life they think they can offer advise in, this could be anything ranging from astrological advice, computers, engineering, shopping, relationships, warcraft, etc. Members can then choose to be alerted via email anytime a new question is posted to the site that calls for help from someone with their particular expertise.
Registered users are also able to browse the site at will, seeing what kind of questions are open within the various categories and exploring members profiles. When looking through a category you can also browse what users have attached themselves as experts for that subject area, with a snapshot of their profile in case you need to find someone to contact directly.
Unlike other Q&A sites, BrainRepublic is all about one-to-one communication. Instead of getting half answered, not very helpful replies (as you may expect from asking a question on Yahoo Answers for example), the idea is that people who have put themselves down as subject specialists actually work through your problem with you personally, using either voice, text or video chat to achieve that.
Posting a question is easy, just hit the ‘request a talk’ button that appears on every page of the site. You can’t add your own category tags (at the moment), which is a bit painful, meaning that in order to make sure the question gets seen by the experts you want to see it, you have to enter keywords related to your topic as part of the questions text.
Setting yourself up to answer a question is equally easy. Simply find something you want to answer and click on the ‘add a new talking offer’ button. This will present a pop up that allows you to either choose to answer the question for free or for a charge (the price of which you set), as well as a comments box so that you can explain your offer (your experience, method you plan to use, costing) to the interested parties. If you do choose to charge a fee, then be aware that BrainRepublic will take a 30% cut as their commission.
All in all it’s a pretty good idea, putting people in contact with other people who have the skills they need, providing a way for members build up their reputations as experts in a given subject area. Not to mention the easy to use chat tools, all available though a very well designed web interface. BrainRepublic.com is a great social media start-up, one which I would expect to do very well in the years to come.
Post image by walknboston
Posted in Social Startups. Tags: qa, question and answer
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