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Filed under: Fun, Internet, News, Web services, Social Software

Avanoo gets major new push, sets big goals


It was just a little over a week ago that we took our first look at Avanoo, and invited a big group of Download Squad readers to peek behind the walls of the Beta to have a sniff around. This week Avanoo is on the rampage, declaring that they seek to accept 100 million 'deposits' from a diverse set of communities over the next 100 days as well as, re-branding to the tagline "Community Wisdom Bank", a phrase that does an adequate job of explaining what Avanoo really aims to do.

The concept is simple but brilliant; Ask enough people simple yes or no questions with knowledge of the demographic data of those you ask and you create an extremely useful resource. Offer those same people access to the data they've helped build and you've taken market research into Web 2.0 territory; Let those same people define the questions they're asked and you've created a self-propelling phenomenon that taps the wisdom of diverse communities.

Our favorite bit of Avanoo mined wisdom so far? Ok, admittedly it's trivial but, "100% of non-believers think Paris deserved the jail time... compared to 71.4% of Christians and just 50% of Jews." Sure, we could have lived without knowing that gem of wisdom but, why should we have to?

Take the leap to read Avanoo's full press release. Leave us a comment to snag one of our few remaining invitiations to Avanoo's beta!

Gallery: Avanoo

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Filed under: Features, News, Web services

Avanoo - Harness the wisdom of communities


Avanoo is a brand-spanking new community wisdom mining system that may one day knock your socks off with its ability to gain insight into tough questions. We've got 100 public beta invites to throw our readers so, hop in and comment on the Wisdom of Communities to get your ticket to ride!

Social news has been all the rage among the tech-savvy but, it's failed to hit home with the everyman. Digg and Reddit are massively popular with the geek set -- the place to be if you want to know what a tech heavy male between 18 and 24 thinks -- but, what about everyone else?

Enter Avanoo. Not a social news site, not really a social networking site, Avanoo is something different. Collecting the wisdom of its community, Avanoo is poised to give you some amazing insight into what everyone thinks, or what a tiny demographic based slice of everyone thinks.

It works like this; Avanoo users ask questions with finite numbers of answers, which are then posed to the community of Avanoo users. Answers are collected and available for the community to view. Simple enough? Sure, but this is where it starts to become seriously cool. In the style of "give a little to get a little", Avanoo users can mine the polling data they've helped create by giving a little data of their own. Want to know how 18-24 year olds felt? Give your own age. Want to know how people with an income below $30,000/year feel? Give your own income.

Avanoo's president Dan Jacobs tells me it's all about perspective, "The wisdom of crowds fails because the crowd has no perspective, the wisdom of experts fails because the expert doesn't share your perspective." Avanoo essentially allows you to define the perspective, "the lens" if you will, through which you want to view the world; Something that a whole host of social news sites have failed to do.

The brilliance in Avanoo is its simplicity; it's an idea which makes you smack your head and wonder, "Why didn't I think of that." Avanoo enters public beta today, and anticipates that it will soon be open to in excess of 10,000 users.

Gallery: Avanoo


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