As featured on CNN, TechCrunch, TNW, Fastcompany, Mashable, VentureBeat and more…
When is a tweet a beep? Beepl users can now send questions to and from Twitter
We’ve added a new Twitter feature to Beepl: the ability to post questions to and from Twitter, and track any corresponding tweets.
Beepl users who have signed up via Twitter or who have linked their Twitter account can now send questions to and from Twitter:
- On Beepl itself, simply tick the Twitter check-box when asking a question and it will simultaneously go out as a tweet on your behalf.
- Alternatively, using your favourite Twitter client, include the #ask hashtag in your tweet and it will also be sent to Beepl as a question where it can benefit from our real-time network of experts.
- Any corresponding replies from your Twitter followers will then show up on the question detail page on Beepl, below regular answers. Think of it as curated content via the social web.
We hope you like it as much as we enjoyed building it.
Press release: Beepl sees its ‘expertise platform’ launch to the public
London and Prague, January 16th 2012 – Semantic technology company Beepl announces that its ‘expertise platform’ Beepl.com has opened to the public today following a three month private and invite-only alpha period.
The Question & Answer site lets users seek answers and opinion from subject specialists, enthusiasts and their social graph. Beepl also understands the topics that questions relate to and users’ interests and expertise so that questions automatically reach the best people to answer them.
It achieves this by employing natural language processing and machine learning to create a real-time network of experts in which questions are re-routed and matched to the most relevant users, marking Beepl out from similar Q&A sites.
In addition, Beepl has been built on top of the social web from the get-go:
- Users sign in to Beepl.com via Facebook and/or Twitter and can also connect their LinkedIn profile.
- Beepl then analyses these social media profiles to help supplement a user’s ‘interest graph’ on Beepl (e.g. Facebook Likes, LinkedIn skills, recent tweets) so that they always see and can answer questions most relevant to them.
- Users who connect their Twitter account to Beepl.com can also send questions to and from Twitter (using the #ask hashtag) and any replies provided by their Twitter followers are displayed on the corresponding Beepl question detail page. This is a great feature for users with a lot of Twitter followers, while conversely, even users with a low follower count benefit as their tweeted question still reaches Beepl’s real-time network of experts.
- As users build social capital, they are awarded a ‘Beepl Rank’, an algorithmically-defined score based on their overall Beepl contribution relative to the rest of the community, which is displayed on their profile.
- Beepl makes it easy to share questions and corresponding discussions via dedicated Twitter and Facebook buttons or a short URL.
Steve O’Hear, CEO of Beepl and former technology journalist with TechCrunch, comments:
“Feedback from users during our private alpha has been really positive, citing the site’s user experience, real-time feel and semantic technology as strong points, so we’re doubly-excited to open up to the public. The team has worked extremely hard to get to this point too, although with a long and winding road map ahead, Beepl.com as you see it today, is really just the beginning.”
Notes to editors
- In July 2011 Beepl announced its first funding round, a ‘six figure’ Euro seed investment by Prague-based Credo Ventures, a VC fund targeting early stage technology companies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Credo partner Ondrej Bartos also sits on Beepl’s Board of Directors.
- Beepl is co-founded by ex-TechCrunch journalist Steve O’Hear. Prior to TechCrunch, O’Hear has held various writing positions, including at CBS-owned ZDNet where he wrote the well-regarded ‘The Social Web’ blog. The rest of the founding team is comprised of Jan Paricka (CTO), Pete Harris (UX), and Rosie Svaskova (Community Manager).
- Founded in April 2011, Beepl is headquartered in London with an office in Prague and is a registered company in the UK.
For further comment please contact: Steve O’Hear, steve@beepl.com, Skype: sohear
Beepl alpha update (‘Batman Begins’)
Today we pushed out a fairly major update to our private alpha (request an invite here).
Here’s a list of improvements included in the update, internally code-named ‘Batman Begins’:
- improved on-boarding experience, inc. building initial interest graph
- new search
- new short urls method
- new invites and notification emails
- new ‘Ask questions’ super-tagging and ‘similar questions’ front-end lookups
- new registration process validation and pre-population of form
- real-time timestamps (updating every minute)
- + lots more smaller stuff
Alpha testers, please report any issues through the usual channels.
Thanks!
As well as our London-based HQ, we’ve opened a Prague office!
You can’t stop people asking questions, there’s just this inherent human desire to question the world around us and to learn from each other.
And the first tweets are in…
We’re funded and TechCrunch gets the scoop
Finally, on 20th of July 2011 we were able to announce our first funding round, a seed investment by Prague-based Credo Ventures - although, naturally TechCrunch gets the scoop.
Robin Wauters writes:
The company will be in stealth mode for the next few months, but from what I’ve gathered they’re building a platform that will enable users to get quality answers to their questions, as well as opinions from relevant topic experts, enthusiasts and their social graph.
In PR lingo, the way they plan to pull this off sounds something like this:
“Beepl achieves this through a bespoke semantic engine that employs natural language processing and machine learning to both understand the topics that questions relate to and users’ interests and expertise.”
A better Q&A mousetrap, in other words, or dare we say, a better Quora? We’ll find out soon enough.
