Crowdsourced Search & Know: Jodo & Wikiasari Employ "The Wisdom Of Crowds"

If you're a surfer, you 'feel' when a great wave is building up power behind you. Whether it's the seventh wave in a set, or a sense of action starting around you, you instinctively 'know' something is coming up fast.

And you have to paddle like fury to make sure you don't miss maybe 'the' ONE wave. Because if you do, then that might be it for the rest of the day...

Well, there is an absolutely MONSTROUS wave building up on the Web right now, which has been gathering momentum since the phrase crowdsourcing was coined in the context of the web earlier this year.

And that wave is using 'The Wisdom of Crowds' in 'Search'. And its just been announced that Wikiasari, 'human refined search' is going to launch Q1 and aim to rival 'algorhythmic, electronic search' a la Google. At the moment, the satisfaction of search is determined by the page that the sophisticated searchbots determine most accurately reflects what you are seeking. Why may well not be the page you end up at first, second or even fifteenth.

Searchbots and Algorhythms are not Arbiters of 'True' or 'False' 'Right' or 'Wrong'. That is why humans preside over courts of law, making 'Life and Death' decisions, not Computers.

So, why should this be any different in Search? Well, it shouldn't be. Where Wikiasari is concerned, this programme should give the user quicker access to what they are searching for. And, of course, where www.Jodo.biz is concerned, we are using EXACTLY the same crowdsouring mechanism - mobilising many for me - to deliver task, answer or search satisfaction.

What will this mean? Well, it will mean in Q1 of 2007, people may start to use Wikiasari to search for what they Really REALLY want and Jodo to ask other Jodoers (Humans) what they can really really do or recommend.

The wave is coming...and we are paddling very VERY FAST to catch it.

PADDLE.

Article on Jodo.biz in New Media Age yesterday

22.12.06
News: King of Shaves founder opens site to 'monetise brainpower'

Platform: Internet Author: By Andrew McCormick Source: NMA magazine Published: 21.12.06

Will King, the founder of shaving brand King of Shaves, has launched an online service that rewards users for solving problems.

www.Jodo.biz invites people to post problems and questions online. They place a value on the answer to reward the user who comes up with the best one.

It aims to get users to sign up to the service through the tagline 'Sign up, share know, make dough'.

King said that Jodo.biz can be best described as a network of knowledge merchants aimed at "monetising brainpower".

"The short-term aim is to get 10,000 people a month posting questions on the site," he added.

Jodo.biz employs payment system PayPal. It's the latest venture for King, who launched King of Shaves in 1993 and bought the website shave.com in 1995.

He said he will start a drive to get users to the site in early 2007.

jodo.biz
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Reiterating The Story Of Jodo.biz

From Knowledge Merchants to JoDoers: How JoDo.biz came to be...

Dreaming whilst shaving of a network of knowledge merchants.

Back in 1992, I had an idea to create a company called Knowledge Merchants International. This company was to be a network of individuals buying and selling knowledge. I would own a 'gateway' that would levy a small charge on the knowledge transaction - a toll-booth on an information dual-carriageway (as opposed to the information superhighway that was yet to be built - email, mobile, SMS and Skype). As you may imagine, in the paper-based world of the early 90's it was difficult (ok, impossible!) to get the idea going, let alone funded. However, I had already printed the letterhead with the logo 'KMI'. In addition, I had also discovered that to have 'International' in the company name, you had to be international! “So”, I mused “what do I do business-wise, and what do I do with the ($750 worth of) letterhead?” I always wanted my company to have 'American Level Service Values' so the 'I' would be short for Inc. (an American limited company). I wanted to keep the 'K' for Knowledge (not King!) and the 'M' would stand for Merchandising rather than Merchants. Thus Knowledge & Merchandising Inc. Ltd. was born, and that company's first product was called King of Shaves Original Shaving oil - the shaving product, that became a global brand and challenger to Gillette (www.shave.com).

2006: Web 2.0 and an individual discovers 'crowdsourcing'.

Fast forward 14 years. In June 2006, I was at my brother Doug's (Doug is a successful hedge-fund founder). He had a friend over - a senior executive at Dell Computer, and we were talking about business. I happened to also be reading The Times and chanced upon an article called 'crowdsourcing'.

Now, I suck up knowledge and words like no one else but I hadn't come across the term "crowdsourcing" before. If you haven't either here is the etymology courtesy of two chaps at Wired.com (or google 'crowdsourcing'):"Thus the term crowdsourcing (a term, for the record, coined jointly by Mark and myself that day, in a fit of back-and-forth wordplay). Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers (sic)."

I quickly realised that this means of solving a problem - or getting a job done - was only being used in a very limited way: for creating internet software applications and, I later found out, by large corporations like drug companies to solve major league problems. It wasn't about getting any Job Done or any question Answered.

This was exactly what Knowledge Merchants International was about! An 'Open Call' to a group of 'Knowledge Merchants' (now I call them JoDo'ers) to see if they (or someone they knew) could answer a question, any question at all! Now all I needed to create was that toll-booth for transactions and then to build the communities.

I've always enjoyed making up new languages, logo's and business models, and JoDo is no exception! I could have called it Knowmer.com - short for Knowledge Merchants - indeed, maybe this is a good name for it. But, as the design team at Kempt were keen for it to have a strong identitiy - I came up with JoDo.biz, JoDo being nothing more sophisticated than an abbreviation of 'Job Done' (it also happens to be a Japanese martial art which I quite liked!). The team at Kempt then came up with our logo, along with the phrase 'Light Work, Many Hands Make' which I thought was entirely descriptive of the site and so trademarked it. It has a certain Yoda-ness to it.

I hope you find Jodo useful, if you don't - it simply won't exist - if you do, spread the word!Enthuse, Exceed, but above all - Enjoy!

Will KingFounder, www.Jodo.biz

Build It And They Will Come.

The princely number of 769 people visited www.jodo.biz in November 2006...

But by December 20th, 6,400 had visited, with 24,700 page views and a return rate of 20%.

We're off...but where we go, we don't yet know!

But Crowdsourced Powered, Fee Paying Question Answering Is A Reality.

Of that I AM sure!

So Who's Making The Money On Yahoo! Answers? Well, it's not YOU for sure.

I read today that Yahoo! is set to roll out its Yahoo! Answers product in the UK. This is at the same time that Google Answers has given up the ghost! So, what's going on? How come one of the most successful 'search' companies has stopped providing an innovative service, whilst another is trying to make a go of it?

The web is certainly a funny old place.

And the incident gets more interesting, because Yahoo! Answers expects people to answer questions for free! Getting more eyeballs, and quietly building new advertising revenue models.

But surely that's not right? Yahoo! making the money, whilst the people doing the work "do it for love" and for no money. Surely this is exploitation of a Dickensian era on the World Wide Web?

Think. Yahoo! is a multi-billion dollar company. That means it is worth over $1,000,000,000. Count the zero's. It is allowing YOU to get your question answered, but the work isn't done by a Yahoo'er - oh no - nothing like that. Yahoo! gets YOU to do the work too!

People have asked me how Jodo is different to Yahoo! Answers. Well, it's different for one simple reason. Jodo places a VALUE on knowledge and allows the person DOING THE WORK TO EARN THE MONEY.

I for one will be building the network of Jodoers, because there is a business for them to be built here to their advantage, they are not being taken advantage of by a faceless 'Search' company.

You read it here first. Say Yah Boo to Yahoo! and Go Jodo!

Press Release

I sent out this press release today via PRWeb.com...

Introducing Jodo.biz Enabling Crowdsourced Knowledge Sharing

Jodo.biz is a revolutionary problem solving, knowledge sharing website based around the 'open call' concept of crowdsourcing in a Web 2.0 environment.

(PRWEB) December 18, 2006 -- Jodo.biz seeks to be the world's leading knowledge transaction portal, revolutionising the way knowledge is shared (valued and monetized) on a global basis. The site uses the tagline "Light Work, Many Hands Make", matching seekers of 'know' with providers of 'how' on a dynamic, macro-unstructured scale,

Jodo is deceptively simple to use, and sublimely effective in execution. It enables an 'Open Call' to a group of Jodoer's to see if they (or someone they know) can answer a question or task posed. The parties then tie the KNoT (KNowledge Transaction) with each other, payment is then made and the site uses a rating or feedback mechanism to ensure all parties are happy with the result. Jodo is securely powered by PayPal, used world-wide by over 100M people.

The origins of Jodo date back to 1992 when the founder, Will King had an idea for a netwok of 'Knowledge Merchants' who would transact their 'knowhow' through a portal, sharing knowledge and knowhow world-wide. Jodo.biz is inspired by a concept termed 'crowdsourcing', which itself means ''The act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers'.

Will King, Founder of Jodo.biz comments: "I am hugely excited by the concept and potential of Jodo to truly get 'Any Question Answered, Any Task Done' in a dynamic and cost effective way. Already, the site has solved a number of problems or facilitated solutions which otherwise would almost be impossible to deal with".

We're On Our Way To San Jose (maybe)!

Today was a landmark day for Jodo - I tied the KNoT (KNowledge Transaction) with our first 14 official Jodoer's, all of whom are founder members of Jodo (more about this in the future).

This proves THE SITE CONCEPT works, and now we simply need to build mass.

So, as Mr. Jodo says "Sign Up, Share Know, Make Dough" (that's money to those of you who don't get this particular English phrase).

We're looking for 100 FoJoDoer's (Founder Job Doers) - will YOU be next? You have to apply for a job, or post a job to be considered.

Go!

Guaranteed Money Back If Your Job Isn't Done!

I've just realised one of the BEST things about Jodo is that - if your task isn't done, problem isn't sorted or question isn't answered, then you will get your money back (less the Jodo & PayPal fees).

This must be UNIQUE. Think. If you take an ad out in the paper, you have to pay the newspaper irrespective of whether you get what you want from your ad - employee hired, car sold - whatever.

But with www.Jodo.biz you are free to CANCEL your job at any time* and get the vast majority of your cash BACK (*see terms & conditions for cancelling jobs - eg you cannot cancel a job if a jodoer has applied to do it).

So, there you are. The internet keeps things evolving to the benefit of you - the visitor and hopefully Jodoer!

"Sign Up, Share Know, Make Dough!" Jodo is Go!

I've had an ASTONISHING response to the launch of the site with ideas to grow awareness of Jodo.

THANKS!

There are a few teething problems, but I am excited about the possibilities and look forwards to traffic slowly building as we attract more Jodoer's to do tasks posted.

So, spread the word - At Jodo you 'Sign Up, Share Know, Make Dough!' It's a new way to share knowledge, make money!

Will Alex Tew It Again With Pixelotto?

It's Web Tew.Zero!!!

Background: It was in September 2005 that I first heard about the www.MillionDollarHomePage.com phenomenon that was British student Alex Tew's idea - sell a million pixels for a $1 apiece.

Normally quick to embrace ideas like this, I didn't advertise www.KingofShaves.com on it - big mistake.Anyhow, long story short, turned out that Alex Tew used King of Shaves, we got to know each other, I did him a favour and put him in touch with my PR adviser and he was good enough to do a talk with me Tew 400 youngsters about Entrepreneurship and stuff.

So I was delighted to hear from him last week, with a 'heads up' about his Web Tew.Zero (!!!) - new www.Pixelotto.com site - a neat (if I do say so myself) twist on the original sell pixels, make money website.

I've registered King of Shaves this time, as it's the run up to Christmas (and we're doing 3 for 2 on our products), plus I've put up the URL's for two brand new websites of my own being developed by my Flop Flip LLP www.jodo.biz and www.twomo.com.

Do Tew think it will work? Tew bet it will! Media interest is already spiking, it's free to play and advertisers need eyeballs. There are already some hardcore web companies there, ready to tew roll (sorry can't resist the puns) on Tuesday 5th December.Will Tew become a Millionaire? Well, visit www.Pixelotto.com - click an ad, and be in with a chance!

Tew'd better believe it. First and fast to market wins the race