Hiogi – A Step-by-step Guide
SCOOP:
hiogi – whose slogan is: ‘answers.everywhere.’ launched its public beta this morning.
hiogi’s vision is to become a search standard on mobile phones, stating that ‘hiogi is convenient while traveling and like a good friend who provides an answer that includes experience and individual knowledge’.
Answers are provided by hiogi community members, who do NOT get paid for the answers, so it is encouraged we should be polite ‘as if asking your best friend for advice’ 
. This is an open knowledge platform (on Wikipedia principles).
Web URL: www.hiogi.com
Mobile URL: http://m.hiogi.com
Skype URL: www.hiogi.com/skype
hiogi is positioning itself as a leader in mobile asking technologies and individual answers. Anybody can participate in order to receive and to provide answers plus share his/her insider knowledge.
You get personal contact with the person who answered within this instant feedback solution. There is an open archive and APIs with thousands of questions and references, exciting answer battles, free desktop ticker and widgets.
For those interested, the company info runs as follows: 5 employees; location: Berlin, Germany; founded in May 2007; launched Nov 2007; 30.000 German questions answered so far; two rounds of seed funding by Hasso Platter Ventures, Media Ventures, A-Z; third round pending.
The full press release is below:
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So lets take a look at how this works:
You start the service is by asking (free of charge) via twitter – (d hiogi), Skype, text message to +4917688866000 (with activation code – see below process), mobile web (m.hiogi.com), iPhone (iphone.hiogi.com) or email/PDA (ask@hiogi.com).
In my case, I went on to the website and signed up by clicking on the ‘try now its free’ button:
I filled in my details:
I then checked my inbox for a verification link:
This came within 3 seconds:
I then pressed on the ‘check SMS activation button’ on the page that opened and bingo – I was in!
Clicking on ‘Here we go!’ opened my Profile page where I duly uploaded the picture that shows me in the best light:
Now I will have a play around with the features and (of course) follow the company on Twitter:
And have added them to my Skype by going to www.hiogi.com/skype and following the basic instructions:
This was very cool actually. I put in my given activation code into a Skype chat window (speaking with hiogi):
The I entered ‘HELP’ in big letters and the below keywords list came:
The first question I asked is:
A nanosecond later, the below appeared on my hiogi web page in my browser:
Then – after 20 seconds the below came via Skype:
I could then rate the answer on web or mobile (my comment is below the word ‘feedback’):
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I really like the feel of this service and would like to thank Björn Behrendt (hiogi CEO) for keeping me personally in the loop of developments.
Good luck hiogi!
