Ask a question on twitter, and you may have a pretty good chance of getting an @reply from the friendly VybeTrybe account.
VybeTrybe describes itself as a place to ask questions and get answers from friends, experts, and people just like you. But wait, isn’t that what Yahoo!Answers, JustAnswer.com, and WikiAnswers.com do too? Yes, and no.
Traditional answer sites, like the ones already mentioned, are their own communities. The Yahoo! people shoot the breeze at Yahoo!, the experts at JustAnswer advise the novices at JustAnswer, and the WikiAnswers members chew the fat with WikiAnswers members. VybeTrybe appears to be looking to make a mashup of all of these communties – plus facebook.
Rather than going through the process of signing up for a VybeTrybe (VT) account, VT makes it signing in simple with facebook connect integration. It is nice to see that some startups, like VT, are realizing that facebook actually does have between 200M – 300M members that actually do browse and use other websites. The facebook connect integration also assists VT in recruiting new members as questions and VybeTrybe activity are published to your public facebook feed.
When a question is submitted to the VybeTrybe-at-large, it is published to the facebook feed giving the service a sort of viral element considering the question is good, thought provoking, or popular. The question is also submitted to the VybeTrybe database, which cycles the questions through to users in a hunch-like fashion to users wanting to be helpful. The questions are cycled through to any and all people in hopes that an expert, someone with similar interests, or someone similar experience are able to provide an adequate answer.
It is nice to see a new startup like VybeTrybe taking an old concept and implementing it in a new way. VybeTrybe knows that people will always have questions. VT also knows that people don’t always want to be boxed in by their current answer engine (Yahoo, JustAnswers, etc.). VybeTrybe’s facebook integration makes it possible to solicit the help of your community of friends while also getting feedback from experts and other “strangers” who may have a viable solution to your perplexing query.
{ 0 comments… add one now }
Leave a Comment