Roya Mahboob and Biz Stone

Have you ever seen something beautiful, moving, engaging, or strange, not known what it was, and have a burning desire to find out? My guess is the first thing you do is Google it. What if you used Jelly to ask your friends and extended network instead? Biz Stone, one of the founders of Twitter, is Co-Founder and CEO of Jelly Industries, Inc. Stone has created a brand new app to make asking for help and giving advice easy. He created the app believing that people are essentially good and when you make it easy for them they show it. 

FilmAnnex Capital Partners in Partnership with #TIME100 Influencer Roya Mahboob were early investors in Jelly. Al Gore and Bono are among some of the other high profile investors for the new app, you can get the full list of investors here. It's easy to see why such a variety of advocates for social good would back this app. Jelly uses the power of the internet and social media to engage us with our real world surroundings. It inverts the idea that social media alienates us and instead connects us even more. In the words of Stone himself:

Using Jelly is kinda like using a conventional search engine in that you ask it stuff and it returns answers. But, that’s where the similarities end. Albert Einstein famously said, “Information is not knowledge.” Knowledge is the practical application of information from real human experience.

So how does Jelly work exactly? The simplest way to describe it is: "Point, shoot, ask!" When you see that thing you're miffed by or fascinated in snap a photo of it, and then share the image on Jelly. You can draw, crop or zoom in on the image to make it clear what you're asking about. Ask your question, share the image, and it will be submitted to the people in your network who have Jelly! Jelly will let you know when you have answers submitted. It's a cool way to get answers that doesn't rely on complicated algorithms and isn't marred by advertisements. 

Watch creator Biz Stone talk about Jelly here: