Kids these days can make an average adult feel like they should be hitching up their wagon.
Three bright, technologically minded Mercer Island High School students are getting ready to launch a question-and-answer website called Junglr. If you have a question, you can ask Junglr and then other users with similar interests offer answers.
Junior Zack Elliott and sophomore Isaac Diamond started coding Junglr about a year ago, and then their friend, Junior Robert Sun, joined them.
Elliott is the more visual of the three, so everything you see on the site graphically is his doing, whereas Diamond and Sun do the “back-end” work, relaying the information to the server. All three are enthusiastic, smart and personable young men.
“If you were to ask a question on Facebook it’s limited to friends, and it’s not that fast,” Sun said. “This allows for more reliable answers by interfacing with people who have common interests.”
Right now most of the questions and answers on the site are technology-related because Junglr is still being tested. But already a blog with over 20,000 followers, called freelancefolder.com, in New York, has rated Junglr in the top 14 of question and answer sites. That’s probably because the three guys are organizing people by their interests and expertise, and they will certify that within the Junglr community the answers are reliable.
If you ask a question, more than one person can answer, but the answer that is deemed most reliable will have a golden heart icon next to it, similar to a Facebook “like.” Users can comment or challenge answers, encouraging lively debate.
Once Junglr is fully operational you do have to set up an account, but it’s free. There will also be incentives, or deals, where users accrue points toward T-shirts, gift cards and digital downloads. The Web site already has advertisers, including ITT Tech, and they use Google’s AdSense to attract more advertisers.
Junglr also has its own Facebook page, where sponsors show up, as well as Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Users from New York, Thailand, India and all over the world have already checked them out.
“When each person becomes a user, they set up a profile (like Facebook) and accumulate friends,” Sun said.
He said users can choose to interact with friends only, but they can also put their question out to everyone.
All three guys said they are doing this because it’s one thing to take computer classes, but another to learn hands-on. Sun said practice is better than just learning. Elliott added that it is very time-consuming, but they have bigger plans for Junglr.
“We are looking for a venture capitalist,” Elliott said. “We’re getting so much interest. We’re proud of it.”
Right now to find them, you can go to Junglr.com, enter your email, to which you get a response of “Awesome! We’ll let you know when Junglr is ready.” They will also have an invite friends system through Facebook or e-mail. When the site is up and running full blast, you’ll be able to ask a myriad of questions from technology to sports, to weather and cooking.
Elliott and Sun are practicing SATs and hope to get into the same college after high school so they can continue this work together. Diamond will have to wait a year, but all three see their future careers in the field of technology.
Elliott said his dream job would be working for a company like Google, Facebook, Amazon or Twitter in management.
Sun plans to concentrate on computer engineering and hopes to start his own company or work for a smaller company. Diamond is more interested in computer science, working on software development. All three young men have attended Mercer Island High School since their freshman year.
More online
Learn more online about the site at its home page at junglr.com.
