The Viewpointr Blog

This is where we post about new features and exciting developments on Viewpointr.

Watch a Video on How Viewpointr Works

As we've rolled out Viewpointr to our friends, the site is quickly becoming an easy way to get opinion-based answers. This is very different than several of the other popular Q&A sites currently in the market that seem to gather fact-based answers.

Check out the above 1.5 minute video on how Viewpointr works.

Try it out at http://viewpointr.com. You can sign in with 1-click through Facebook Connect or Twitter Sign In.

Let us know what you think -- http://feedback.viewpointr.com.

Happy Helping,

 

The Viewpointr Team!

--

Help us || http://viewpointr.com/viewpointr
Follow us || http://twitter.com/viewpointr
Fan us || http://facebook.com/viewpointr

 

How is Viewpointr different from Quora?

As we continue to describe the differences amongst the popular Q&A sites in the market right now, here are a few differences that we would like to highlight between Quora (who apparently raised $10 million from Benchmark Capital) and Viewpointr:

Your content is not editable by others

The content that you create on Quora is subject to be edited by other users on the service. This means both your questions and answers can be edited.

Contrastingly, with Viewpointr, your content is not editable by others. Your answers are your viewpoints, and your questions are your requests. 

Building your personalized Q&A database

Viewpointr provides users with their own online Q&A profile that can be easily shared with others via a vanity URL (e.g. http://viewpointr.com/acharoo). Think of it like extracting all of your questions on Facebook and Twitter and combining them into one stream that can be easily accessed and disseminated.

Quora is building a collective Q&A database. As a result, the majority of questions merit fact-based answers as opposed to opinion-based answers. Since questions and answers can be edited on Quora, you lose ownership and exclusivity over your original content. Therefore, if someone had the ability to change your question, this could alter not only the question of interest to you, but also the answers you were originally seeking. 

 
Cross-platform

Viewpointr currently provides a personalized Q&A experience that integrates with your social online circle (i.e. Facebook and Twitter currently). Refer to our blog post entitled "Share Your Questions on Facebook + Twitter with One-Click" to see how you can easily leverage both your friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter. 

We think a cross-platform Q&A solution is more far-reaching for users than an independent platform such as Quora as it relates to getting personalized help. Think of it like how Plancast integrates with Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz.

***

Try it out at http://viewpointr.com. You can sign in with 1-click through Facebook Connect or Twitter Sign In.

Let us know what you think -- http://feedback.viewpointr.com.

Happy Helping,

The Viewpointr Team!

--

Help us || http://viewpointr.com/viewpointr
Follow us || http://twitter.com/viewpointr
Fan us || http://facebook.com/viewpointr

How is Viewpointr different from Aardvark?

As we all know, the Q&A space is pretty hot right now. So, we would like to ensure that everyone knows the differences between Viewpointr and other popular Q&A sites. 

Here are a couple of differences that we would like to highlight between the Q&A / social search startup Aardvark, who got acquired by Google earlier this year, and Viewpointr:

Based on friend recommendations

With Viewpointr, friends, followers and fans determine the best person to answer questions. 

Our bet is that your online social circle will most likely know the best people to help, so why not give them easier ways to do so. On Viewpointr, you can easily point questions to specific friends on Facebook and Twitter, a feature that you cannot do on either platform. 

As a result, Viewpointr facilitates a greater incentive to answer because questions are referred by friends. If a friend refers a question to you, there is a higher probability that you will answer that question as opposed to receiving questions from someone you don't know.

With Aardvark, an algorithm tries to find the best person to answer, which results in a lower incentive to answer questions.   

Tracks your proven expertise as you help others

Viewpointr emphasizes the use of one's 2nd degree network as a means to help others. We believe there's a lot of untapped value in our friends of friends that is yet to be fully realized. So far, LinkedIn does a pretty good job displaying who can put you in touch with a specific person, but in the event you don't know the name of the person, where would you go? This is where we want Viewpointr to help. Viewpointr can help map the types of people that your friends can put you in touch with through Q&A. 

Viewpointr tracks your expertise as you answer questions and/or successfully point questions to friends. As a result, based on precedence, we will be able to recommend questions that you can answer, as well as questions that your friends can answer. 

With Aardvark, you have to input your expertise in order to determine which questions should be sent to you. With Viewpointr, you simply help the people you care about, and we'll track your expertise.

***

Try it out at http://viewpointr.com. You can sign in with 1-click through Facebook Connect or Twitter Sign In.

Let us know what you think -- http://feedback.viewpointr.com.

Happy Helping,

The Viewpointr Team!

--

Help us || http://viewpointr.com/viewpointr
Follow us || http://twitter.com/viewpointr
Fan us || http://facebook.com/viewpointr

Why don't I just use Twitter over Viewpointr?

Although Viewpointr can be described as "Twitter for helping people", there are some differences that we would like to highlight: 

Each question is threaded and has its own page

With Viewpointr, each question is threaded and has its own dedicated page that users can reply on or point to their friends for help. 

Contrastingly, on Twitter, questions can easily get lost because messages are not threaded, and therefore makes it difficult to follow conversations.  

Point to friends easily on Facebook, Twitter, and via Email

Again, as mentioned in the previous post, one of the ways we help a friend in need is to put them in touch with others we think could help. Currently, referring friends to chime in to a request, whether inside or outside of Twitter is difficult. Furthermore, the answer can't be shared easily with others who may have a similar question. 

So, we've made it much easier for you to help others by pointing them to your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Viewpointr and email. 

No character limit

On Twitter, trying to answer a question in 140 characters is very cumbersome and rarely adequate.

With Viewpointr, there is no character limit imposed on questions or answers.  In addition, users can specify who they need help from. 

Try it out -- http://viewpointr.com. You can sign in with 1-click through Facebook Connect or Twitter Sign in.

Let us know what you think -- http://feedback.viewpointr.com.

Happy Helping,

The Viewpointr Team!

--

Help us || http://viewpointr.com/viewpointr
Follow us || http://twitter.com/viewpointr
Fan us || http://facebook.com/viewpointr

 

 

 

Why don't I just use Facebook over Viewpointr?

Although Facebook has recently launched Facebook Questions, which we think will be very complimentary to Viewpointr (noted below), there are some differences that we would like to highlight: 

Personalized space solely for Q&A

We believe there is value in providing 1 destination for all of your Q&A, and Viewpointr aims to be that destination. The Facebook Questions feature hasn't been released to most users yet, so as of right now, Q&A gets lost in your news feed due to the amount of content being shared (i.e. photos, videos, articles, links, etc.). 

With Viewpointr, we provide you with your own URL (e.g. Help me => http://viewpointr.com/acharoo) that you can use to share all of your questions anywhere online. Think of it like your online Q&A profile.

Point to friends easily on Facebook, Twitter, and via Email

One of the ways to help your friends and the people around you is to point them in the right direction. Similar to what happens offline when you ask a friend for help and they say "Oh, I know the perfect person that could help. I can put you in touch with them. Shoot me some information that I can forward." Referring friends inside and outside Facebook is currently difficult. You can't forward messages or questions in status updates on Facebook. Also, it can't be easily shared with others who may have a similar question.

So, we would like to make it much easier for you to help others by providing a way that you can point (i.e. refer) questions to specific friends in your social online circle. 

With Viewpointr, currently you can easily personalize and point questions to your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Viewpointr, and Email.

   

Anyone can help (= follow) you

In envisioning an easy way to give help and get help, we adopted a similar following model to Twitter, where users can click the button "help", which allows them to subscribe to users' requests / questions. This way, anyone can help you. 

With Facebook, questions are only shared within Facebook. With Viewpointr, questions are shared with all of your online networks (e.g. Twitter).

***

Note on Facebook Questions: We plan to integrate with the new Facebook Questions feature to make it easy for people to get help and give help no matter their choice of site. This concept is similar to how Plancast integrates with Facebook Events.  

Try it out -- http://viewpointr.com. You can sign in with 1-click through Facebook Connect or Twitter Sign In.

Let us know what you think -- http://feedback.viewpointr.com.

Happy Helping,

The Viewpointr Team!

--

Help us || http://viewpointr.com/viewpointr
Follow us || http://twitter.com/viewpointr
Fan us || http://facebook.com/viewpointr

 

 

 

Send a Request vs. Ask a Question on Viewpointr

The release of our preview provided us with some great feedback to which we have been working on implementing.

One difference you will see in this iteration is that we will encourage you to send a request instead of asking a question. What's the difference? Sending a request involves a process. Asking a question merely merits an answer. The nature of Viewpointr is to get in touch with people that you DON'T know by going through the people you DO know. However, with the plethora of Q&A sites in the market, users form a perception that their question should be answered right away. However, if you reached out to your friend via email, would you expect a response immediately? Email has a different perception. And, so should Viewpointr. We may have gotten this wrong in our initial preview, so hopefully, we'll get it right on this iteration.

If you're trying to get to various types of people who are outside of your immediate network on your own, it's extremely difficult. Do you poke around on LinkedIn? Do you creep on Facebook to see mutual friends? Do you try to randomly reach out to someone you don't know on Twitter? Any of these are difficult. However, if you rely on your friends to connect you, there's a high chance of success that you will get a meaningful response in return from the people you're looking for. Viewpointr allows you to easily send requests through friends to get to the people you don't know.

So, try out our new iteration -- Fill in a request. Invite friends to make connections. Your friends will point your request to their friends. 

P.S. if you don't get a response immediately, that's because you didn't just ask a question, you sent a request to your friends. Don't worry! If your friends are your friends, they will point your request to the types of people you're looking for.

Let us know what you think. Share your thoughts on Facebook, Twitter and / or our Feedback Forum.

Looking forward to hearing from you. 

Cheers,
Andre

Other related articles:

New Splash Page

As a result of your feedback, we have revised our splash page to better communicate the value proposition behind Viewpointr. 


We have essentially boiled it down to one simple question that I'm sure you have asked your friends time and time again -- "Can you point me to (a certain type of person)?" 

Here is our new splash page:

Here is our old splash page:

Hope you guys like it. For those of you who haven't tried it out yet, sign up at here to get an invite.

Cheers,
Andre

Viewpointr vs Email

Many of our early private users have asked us -- "Why would I use Viewpointr over email to send questions to my friends?"

Firstly, Viewpointr facilitates communication with your friends-of-friends, not your friends. Your friends point questions to their friends who can best answer your questions.

The other reasons why you would use Viewpointr vs email are:

  1. Unlike the back and forth with email, you can directly ask your question to people you want viewpoints from.
    For example, if you're looking to get in touch with a "designer" and you reach out to a few friends who you think can put you in touch with them; you would have to write an initial email to your friend (or friends), wait for a reply, and then, your friend(s) would either have to do an email introduction or provide you with the designer's contact info. All of this takes time and involves a bit of back and forth.
  2. Host your conversations in one place.
    For example, if you're looking to get multiple viewpoints from a several different types of people such as "designers, architects, and engineers" regarding the same topic / question, it makes sense to have that conversation in one place where it's easily tracked, stored and retrieved when needed.
  3. To capture you and your friend's influence.
    The beauty of Viewpointr is having the ability to capture the various types of people and information that your friends have access to. Our online profiles like Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, and Twitter are often static and don't share the full story with regards to the types of people your friends can point you to. Viewpointr captures your questions, the questions you point, and the questions you answer seamlessly without you doing anything else but pointing or answering them.
Try it out and let us know what you think.

Ask a question that you're looking for multiple viewpoints and invite at least 3 friends to point it. Have a conversation with them and see how your profile grows.
 
***

As a brief sneak preview to what we're working on -- users will soon be able to benefit from all of Viewpointr's features by simply using their own email. Think posterous meets yahoo answers! Very exciting. Stay tuned via Twitter and Facebook.

Cheers,
Andre

Viewpointr's Email Notifications

Recently, we received a spam complaint regarding the email notifications we send from our system and we just wanted to explain the meaning behind them.

The nature of Viewpointr is for users to ask questions and invite their friends to help direct those questions to their friends who can answer it. At this stage, most of our user's friends are not users of Viewpointr yet. Therefore, the only way that a user's friend receives their question is to point it through email.

The user asking the question triggers an email notification from our system to the user's friend. These emails are not spam. A user has essentially invited friends and we send an email notification that notifies their friend.

So, if you receive an email from Viewpointr with any of the following subjects containing a friend's name, please do not send to spam.

   
Click here to download:
Viewpointrs_Email_Notification.zip (15 KB)

Your friend is a user of Viewpointr and is simply asking you a question through our system.

We have no intention of spamming people. Our only intention is to help facilitate communication with people who are outside of one's network in order to get the viewpoints they're looking for.

-Andre