What is Askaro
Askaro is a hyperlocal site to exchange information where it matters the most: our neighborhoods, our places or work, etc. The proposition is simple, you ask a question in a specific area by placing it on a map, hoping that people who live or know the area would give you an unbiased and helpful answer.
It's unnecessarily difficult but very valuable to be able to reach out to our neighbors to tap into their knowledge about local issues. Tourist guides, restaurant review sites, etc are helpful but don't always cut it.
Please, consider Askaro an experiment. The site just launched, many features are still in the works; we rather put something out incomplete and start hearing from you how the site should work, than the other way around.
The name "Askaro" comes from "Ask around".
How does Askaro work
Askaro combines geolocation, question and answer model and reputation, as basis of its inner workings. Questions are asked, or placed, in a specific area of a city, in order to reach out to the people who live or intimately know the area and are capable of answering them. An analogy would be to stick a flyer at your local grocery store to reach out only to passersby, or people in your neighborhood.
Answers can be voted once as "Good" or "Bad" by anyone, which have the effect of moving them up or down.The question's author can also designate a specific answer as the "Best answer" if he or she considers it the most useful or appropriate one. Best answers turn green and move to the top.
The number of votes and the answers marked as "best answer" are used to calculate the reputation score of a person, which is a measure of how valuable is someone's contribution and how useful and trustworthy are his answers. The users with the best reputation in a city can be found in the "Local Heroes" page.
Technology
Askaro server side code is written in python, and runs in the app engine, google's cloud computing offering. So far so good, although this "cloud" world is pretty new, and the scalability, reliability, etc that it offers needs to be put to test. Bugs, problems, feature request, etc please fire them to us. Client side javascript relies on jquery.
Team
Ubaldo Huerta: I was born in Havana, Cuba and "moved" to the US in 92. Later "emigrated" to Barcelona, in 2002, and founded Loquo, a now popular classifieds site, that initially ran from a server sitting in my flat's living room in the Raval neighborhood. The site grew and was later acquired, in 2005, by Ebay. I write the code for the site, and also keep an abandoned blog that still weights on my conscience. You can reach me at ubaldo@askaro.com or @ubaldo
Eduardo Manchón: Born in Callosa de Segura (Alicante). I worked with Ubaldo at loquo; after the acquisition by ebay, in 2005, founded along with my friend and software developer, Joaquín Cuenca, the photo site Panoramio. Initially developed in our spare time, the site grew fast and was acquired by Google in 2007. After spending the last 7 years living in different locations around Europe: Norway, Germany and Switzerland, I am back in Alicante. I keep a blog (mainly in Spanish). You may contact me at eduardo@askaro.com or @eduardomanchon
The front end design (html + css) was done by Lasse Johnsen and Ricardo Valiente.
Translators
Hungarian: Gabor Hauberger
German: Sebastian Holzapfel
Portuguese (Brazil): Cleber Lima
Greek: Tasos and Kostas Koutsavlis
French: Matt Martin
Contact
You can follow the latest developments in:
- Askaro's blog
- @askaro twitter account
Or contact us by email at questions@askaro.com
Press
9/10/2009
8/10/2009