Qwiki is hot right now.
Late last week, it received $8 million in venture capital from prominent names like Eduardo Saverin (co-founder of Facebook) and Jawed Karim (co-founder, YouTube).
So what exactly is Qwiki (pronounced like 'quicky') and why is it the buzz of the digital information consumption industry?
Doug Imbruce, CEO of Qwiki, said the problem with digital information consumption today is not the lack of it but rather the overload of it.
In response, his company seeks to be the platform that delivers an 'information experience' that's more palatable to human beings.
"Think of asking your favorite teacher about Leonardo Da Vinci, or your most well-traveled friend about Buenos Aires: this is the experience Qwiki will eventually deliver, on demand, wherever you are in the world… on whatever device you’re using," said Qwiki's website.
To break Qwiki down to its parts, it basically an informative slideshow with a voice-over.
Another way to look at it is Wikipedia powered by some really fancy, high-tech Adobe Flash technology.
In my opinion, this isn't such a bad idea.
When I want information on 'Philadelphia,' for example, I may just prefer watching a mini-documentary on it rather than using Google.
Frankly, I'm a little tired of reading all the massive text websites that Google crawls up Moreover, it's annoying to sift through all the spam/commercial websites on the search engine results page when all I want is straight information.
Chief Technology Officer Louis Monier said Qwiki's 'information experience' isn't assembled by humans; rather, it's done by technology. In other words, it's a scalable platform that has the potential to be huge (like Google).
As far as I know, Qwiki did not disclose information about the technology behind its platform.
The company has samples of 'information experiences' on its website. To see one on the International Space Station, click here.
To get more access to Qwiki, users can sign up for their alpha program at their website.
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