Welcome to Qwiki!
Since we launched our private alpha in October of last year, we’ve received a tremendous amount of feedback from our private alpha users; including a truly amazing response to our mission of forever changing the way the world receives its information.
Today, we take the next step in Qwiki’s history; and open our alpha to the public. We’ve added some new features and functionalities, and continue to ask for feedback from each of you in helping us perfect our technology. For those of you new to Qwiki, please take a moment to learn about our technology.
If you were a private alpha user, please note that we have some new features, including ways to suggest content to improve Qwikis and embed Qwikis on other sites.
What is Qwiki?
Qwiki is a startup pioneering the “information experience” via on-the-fly transformation of data into rich media narratives. Our mission is to improve the way the world consumes information by transforming it into a quintessentially human experience.
What can I do with Qwiki?
To start, Qwiki covers over 3 million reference terms – including a wide variety of people, places and things. You can type in any indexed term and Qwiki will generate an “information experience” describing it.
Feedback is important!
The purpose of the Qwiki Alpha is to gather feedback on each Qwiki you watch. You can do this via a form that’s accessible by clicking on the star rating bar located at the top of each Qwiki, titled “Rate this Qwiki.” Here you can rate the Qwiki based on 5-stars, and leave a comment.
Now let’s get started! Curious about New Zealand?
Search results appear in real time below the bar.
Once you select a Qwiki, your information experience will begin (note: if you experience slow loading times, please report them via the “Rate this Qwiki” button).
Watch as your selected term is transformed into a visual presentation accompanied by real-time audio narration and other data including:
- Maps
- Videos
- Images
- Animations
- …and much more coming soon!
Remember, every Qwiki is both immersive and interactive. You can click on objects within the Qwiki for further interactivity and a more detailed view of the object.
Browse maps
View full videos
Every Qwiki has “related” Qwikis, viewable by browsing the bar below the player, or by clicking any image, video, or on media that has a link at the bottom of it.
You can also click on images in order to activate “detail view”. Detail view allows you to see the source of the image and to explore related Qwikis.
Custom animations are created based on data gathered by Qwiki, including timelines and populations.
Want to know the contents of each Qwiki in one page? You can click on “Contents” button located at the top of each Qwiki, and you’ll have all contents of the Qwiki you’re watching displayed in a static format. You can also hit print at top right of the page, if you’d like hard copies of the content.
We’ve also made it easy to copy and share the link for the Qwiki you’re watching by clicking on the shortened shortcut, located at the top right of each Qwiki.
What to do when your Qwiki ends? You have lots of options:
- Replay and share the Qwiki
- Embed the Qwiki
- Watch related Qwikis
- Explore the sourced pages on Wikipedia, Google, fotopedia, and YouTube for the Qwiki
You can even embed the Qwiki on another site. Just copy and paste the embedding code and select what size you’d like.
Did we miss something? You can help improve each Qwiki by clicking on “Improve this Qwiki” located at the top of each Qwiki, which will allow you to:
- Suggest a picture
- Suggest a YouTube video
- Suggest changes in helping us improve the sound quality
Soon you’ll be able to watch Qwikis on your Facebook friends, local restaurants – and we hope, eventually any topic in the world. In fact, any publisher or person will soon be able to create Qwikis.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @Qwiki, join our Facebook page at http://qwi.ki/gVZayC , and send us questions, comments, critiques, and love at hi@qwiki.com. We look forward to hearing from you!