Archive for the ‘Knowledge’ Category
Interview With Questler Founder Razan Khatib
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 16, 2008 – 11:04 am |
4 Comments
First of all, I’d like to really thank Razan Khatib, the founder of Questler, an interesting Jordan-based startup which was previously reviewed here, for taking some of her time to answer some of our questions about Questler, offer us some insight into the startup, the experience so far and where it’s going, as well as tips and advice for other entrepreneurs.
How would you describe Questler in your own words?
Questler is an informal learning network which allows its user base to learn from each other on any topic they have in mind through posting Quests and commenting on them. Quests in Questler are mini-blogs of information categorized into 6 types, Query, Observation, Discovery, Research, Media and Story. Each of those types represents an informal aspect to everyday learning. It’s not only a Q & A site, as some users keep comparing us with Yahoo!Answers. Questler is a place for mini-blogging, conversation, discussion, opinions and recommendations from peers rather than experts. The word “Questler” was chosen because learning starts with a quest!
How did you get the idea for Questler? and what made you feel passionate about this specific idea?
The initial thoughts on Questler came in late 2005, I basically stumbled on facebook while searching for learning technologies, and thought immediately of the power of social networks in learning rather than just social connections. I felt that there is a great space here for innovation yet I let sometime over 10 months before I started seriously working on Questler. Had to make the jump into entrepreneurship and that took some time to kick in! I was always enthusiastic about self-learning and learning from others, I find this form of learning (informal) is the real learning everyone does when they start working as opposed to what we learning in formal settings.
Did you face any difficulties or challenges taking Questler from idea to project to company?
Yes of course I did, financing from one hand was a challenge, trying to find the right partners as well as trying to create something new as opposed to imitating other sites. Still a challenge with the number of web startups launching everyday, the hardest challenge is your ability to adapt and keep trying to differentiate your project/product. We made numerous mistakes along the way, but working on Questler was and is the most exciting and fulfilling work I’ve done in my life, the adrenaline rush when launching a release, when traffic takes a hike, amazing experience.
Al-Fawaed, Arab Social Knowledge Sharing Service
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 15, 2008 – 1:23 pm | No Comments
Al-Fawaed, which means “benefits” or “useful things” in English, is an interesting new project, which lets users share the useful and most interesting points they’ve taken away from reading a certain book or article, listening to a lecture, watching a television program, or even from a personal life experience.
There are two ways of sharing these useful points; either by writing a summary resuming and listing them, or by posting a mind map diagram explaining the ideas behind them; in either case presenting the information in a simple format that can be passed on easily; the possibility to tag and categorize these points further organizes them and makes them easier to find.
The aim behind it all is both to be able to go back to these noted useful ideas at a later date, and to share them with the community of users, thereby sharing knowledge in a simple and effective way.
Like all social sites, other site users can vote these summaries and mind maps up or down according to how useful they find them.
Al-Fawaed was launched in 2007 from Saudi Arabia, with an Arabic interface only, by a team consisting of Nawaf Hareeri, Abdulrahman Al-Harithi, Rakan Yamani and Khaled Hareeri.
Questler, Online Learning And Knowledge Sharing Network
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | April 10, 2008 – 9:34 am | 2 Comments
Questler is a new online service that was launched into public beta a few months ago and which has an interesting social networking approach to acquiring and sharing knowledge online.
The idea of the website stems from the belief that everyone is a learner, seeking to know more about certain topics of interest to them, and that a free-space interactive approach between different individuals is the best way to learn, share knowledge and collaboratively create ideas.
So in other words, the goal is to try to tap into the collective knowledge of the crowd to acquire and share knowledge.
Questler users can put together a learning network by inviting and constructing a list of their contacts, as well as finding other individuals who share their same interests on the site.
Together they can use the service to start conversations about those topics and engage in knowledge sharing through posting their quests and discoveries on different subjects.
The interface is really simple and clear; well designed; well organized and straight to the point. I really like their simple logo and visual identity too.
It’s in English only for the time being; no work on if they’ll be adding Arabic soon.
It’s a really interesting approach and service, worth checking out for your quest for knowledge online.
