Twitter co-founder Biz Stone unveils Q&A; app Jelly

SAN FRANCISCO -- After months of secrecy, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has taken the wraps off Jelly, a new question-and-answer app for iOS and Android.

The app is designed to give people answers from their social networks and will compete with similar services such as Quora. You can download Jelly by going to the company’s website.

What distinguishes Jelly: You can ask questions with images.

Jelly is focused on images, which Stone says “add depth and context to any question.�

You can crop an image, zoom in on something, even draw on the image to ask your question.

The concept for Jelly was borne of Stone’s desire to make the world a more “empathetic� place by connecting people in new and potentially powerful ways.

Stone broke the news Tuesday with a post on the Jelly blog and emails to news outlets. (There’s also a video with Stone and co-founder Ben Finkel.)

Stone says Jelly is designed “to search the group mind of your social networks.�

“Jelly changes how we find answers because it uses pictures and people in our social networks. It turns out that getting answers from people is very different from retrieving information with algorithms,� he said.

Questions on Jelly can also be forwarded to people not using the app. “Maybe your friend, or even your friend’s friend doesn’t have the answer. However, your friend’s friend’s friend just might,� Stone said.

And why the jellyfish?

“We chose the jellyfish to represent our product because it has a loose network of nerves that act as a ‘brain’ similar to the way we envision loosely distributed networks of people coordinating via Jelly to help each other,� he said.

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