New social network Jelly may be attracting big buzz and big-name investors, but Fool contributor Tim Beyers says there's no reason to believe the service will become the next Twitter (TWTR +0.00%).
Some are already comparing the two because of Biz Stone, a Twitter co-founder who's also the brains behind Jelly. Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey -- Stone's partners in creating Twitter -- are investors in the company, whose software purports to connect people with questions to those who have answers.
No doubt the involvement of the Twitter Triumvirate is intriguing. And yet we've seen this sort of technology before, Tim says in the following video. Years ago Google (GOOG 0.42%) acquired Aardvark, which allowed users to document their areas of expertise and then submit (or answer) questions via instant messaging or email. Think of it as crowdsourced intelligence.
We've also seen other services that put human experts to work in answering questions. Think of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales's short-lived search engine project: Wikiasari. To this day, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) has Answers pages for all sorts of queries. Users rank each response until a "top answer" is determined.
Jelly differs in that the network is entirely mobile, and users submit questions via photo. Otherwise, the idea is essentially the same, and Google shuttered Aardvark in 2011. Investors banking on a better outcome for Jelly may end up disappointed, Tim says.
Do you agree? Are you using Jelly, and if so, do you see it as a vital service? Please watch the video to get Tim's full take and then leave a comment to let us know where you stand
