FAQ

 

Using TweetBrain

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Reward and Fees

Using TweetBrain

What is TweetBrain?

TweetBrain is a crowdsourcing service powered by the Twitter community. It enables you to get a best answer to your question rapidly, and show your value to others well beyond your followers. You may view it as Twitter Answers, although in reality it offers much more!.

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What is Crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a task and outsourcing it to an undefined, large group of people, in the form of an open call.

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How much does it cost to use TweetBrain?

It is free to use TweetBrain to post a question, all you need to do is go to tweetbrain.com and sign in using your Twitter user name and password.

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How do I sign up?

There is no need to sign up, all you need to do is go to tweetbrain.com and sign in using your Twitter user name and password.

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Why do I have troubles logging in TweetBrain sometimes?

As explained in the few FAQs above, TweetBrain authenticates you via Twitter.  So, any operational issues (such as the frequent "Over Capacity" problem) that Twitter suffers will cause access problesm to users of TweetBrain.  In other words, since TweetBrain is built upon Twitter, we can't mask Twitter's problems.  Nevertheless, we will attempt to provide meaningful error messages to users. At least, we will try our best to let you know what's going on!

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Is your site secure?

Definitely! TweetBrain mandates HTTPS for everything.  We have also put in great effort in securing the site against various vicious attacks. With the consistent use of HTTPS, we also prevent your account from been hijacked.  All of such are done with one goal: to keep your data secure and your transactions safe.

In fact, in light of the recent XSS/ClickJacking/CSRF incidents on Twitter (the latest as of April 12, 2009 http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/12/1339258) We are confident to say that using your Twitter's credential is safer on TweetBrain than on the Twitter itself.

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I am worried. Why must I enter my twitter username/password on TweetBrain?

Please don't. We never store your password in our database.  TweetBrain only uses your username/password (aka credentials) to interact with Twitter "live", while you are connected, and even then it never processes your password unencrypted and nobody outside Twitter (not even we at TweetBrain) knows about it.  Also, please see the FAQ right above.

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Why don't you use OAuth for TweetBrain so that I don't need to login twice?

Because twitter just entered into beta for this protocol as of April 8, 2009. Please see http://twitter.com/OAuth for more details.  A heavily used service like TweetBrain must use the most reliable and proven software components available for robustness. Thus, we can't depend on anything that's of "beta" quality. Having said so, please be assured that we are tracking closely the Twitter's OAuth development status and will employ it as soon as possible.

Our  prudent approach is indeed justified in light of reports such as Security flaw leads Twitter, others to pull OAuth support and  Twitter OAuth “Temporarily Disabled”, Developers Left Hanging.

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How do I post a question on TweetBrain?

Once you're signed in, type your question into the web box, you have the option to offer a reward for the best answer, select a topic category and choose a deadline to close the question. In addition, you have the option to tweet your question (shortened to 140 characters) on Twitter as well.

Before you post your question, you may wish to use TweetBrain search to see if any other similar questions have been asked before.

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Do I have to use TweetBrain to crowdsource my question?

No. You don't have to. You can ask your questions using regular tweets right on Twitter.

If your tweet on Twitter has a hashtag #help, #needhelp, #question or if it contains "anybody knows", TweetBrain will post your tweets.

Nevertheless, TweetBrain shows your question to a much wider audience and significantly raises the possibility of yielding a superior answer for your question.

Posting your question on TweetBrain directly also provides you much more flexibility and benefits: it allows you to post a question using a longer description than a regular tweet, putting up a reward, specifying a deadline, and managing both your questions and answers etc.

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Should I offer a reward for my question?

It depends on the nature of your question. With a reward for the best answer, it will be a fun and rewarding experience for answerers - like a contest. As such, most likely you will attract more people to participate in answering your question.

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Should I place a deadline for my question?

It depends on the nature of your question. Once a question is posted, if there is no deadline specified, the default is 1 day, e.g. A best answer need to be chosen in 24 hours from the time a question is posted.

If you don't need to have an answer right away, you can specify a deadline say a couple of days from the time your question is posted. A longer period deadline is not recommended as your question might be buried among the tweet stream quickly.

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Why did my questions posted on Twitter get posted here?

That's the beauty of TweetBrain!  We pull your questions posted on Twitter and show it to an Twitter audience that's potentially much larger then your Twitter followers.  Many of them are bright, helpful, and knowledgable.  Answers from such folks are like a delightful bonus to you, aren't they? You can also invite such good folks to be your followers, to continue to build up and improve the quality and value of your Twitter social network.

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Can I select the best answer before the deadline is reached?

Yes. You can. Once you select the best answer, the question you posted will have a “Closed” tag and the best answer will have a star next to it.

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Can I select the best answer after the deadline has passed?

Yes. You can.  You alone decide when to select the best answer for your question. Please do it at your earliest convenience.

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Any benefits in answering questions?

Yes! There are many!

Knowledge sharing. TweetBrain is powered by Twitter community so that we can help each other. Join us and answer some questions (and ask your own.)  It takes two to tango. Good deeds never go unnoticed!  Besides, you will always learn something new too.

Build Brand Awareness. Each time you provide a timely and useful answer,  you contribute to the build up of a trustable "brand", resulting in fruitful and profitable outcomes, and new opportunities too.

Accelerate a "quality" growth of your Twitter social network. Any time you answer a question, you will be followed by the questioner automatically on Twitter, and you are added to the questioner's "Brainy Friends" circle.  In addition, you have a chance to be listed on the Top Brains so that other Twitter users may notice and add you to their networks. Following/follow relations built up based on such meaningful Q&A exchanges are of high quality and long lasting.

Win rewards. Some questions are posted with rewards. Answering them is a great opportunity to show your value to others.

Better your karma!

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How do I answer a question?

Once you're signed in, you can either watch the public stream to see all live questions or use TweetBrain search to look for a specific topic that interests you.

If the tag next to the question is still “Open” and if you click on it, you will be led to the answer page. Simply type your answer into the web box. Your answer (shortened to 140 characters) will be tweeted back to Twitter for your followers to see.

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Can I protect my answer?

Yes. An answer can be protected at any time by either the person who answers the question or the questioner, in a mutually exclusively manner. Once the answer is protected by either party, it will be hidden from the public view and can only be viewable by the questioner and the answerer. You can also unhide the answer at any time should you change your mind if you are the party who hid the answer initially.

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Can I protect content that I "own" on TweetBrain?

Yes. Just use the "hide" option, which is particularly useful in business contexts and with rewarded questions, for which you may not wish to share the knowledge you're contributing as an answerer or obtaining as a questioner. Please also see the above FAQ.

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How do I know if I have won the reward?

TweetBrain will credit your account and will send you a tweet to inform you the good news as soon as you have won the reward. It will show up in your Twitter stream. You can also see your balance under Account.

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How does Vote work?

If you come across an answer that you like, please vote by clicking on thumb up icon. If you don't like an answer, you can vote by clicking on thumb down icon.

You vote will help the questioner select the best answer.

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Why some answers have a star next to them?

The star is an indication that the answer has been chosen as the best answer by the questioner.

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How does Favorite work?

The little red heart is a way for you to mark an answer and/or a question as a favorite of yours. People can view your favorites, and vice versa, by clicking on the Favorite link in the profile page.

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How do I use Settings?

Settings will allow you to filter out free questions, closed questions or questions with reward. It also give you the option to automatically hide the answers you give or the answers to your questions. In addition, you can choose whether to automatically follow the authors of questions you answer.

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How can I stop my TweetBrain answers from showing up in my Twitter tweet log??

By default, TweetBrain notifies questioners about the answers you give via the three means listed below:

  1. Your tweets if possible
  2. A direct message (DM) from TweetBrain if you couldn't tweet and the recipient follows TweetBrain
  3. TweetBrain's public tweet if no other means are feasible

You can turn off the first two for instance. Regardless, please adjust your TweetBrain Settings to fit your preference.

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How do I track a TweetBrain user and his/her Q&As?

Just like with Twitter, you enter http://tweetbrain.com/twitterid. For example, to keep track of us, and our Q&As, use http://tweetbrain.com/tweetbrain. Note that @tweetbrain is our Twitter ID (aka username).

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Does TweetBrain Search have any special features?

Of course!

  1. If you enter @xyz among your keywords, result will be filtered showing only matching questions from xyz user
  2. If you enter $123 among your keywords, result will be filter showing only matching questions with reward >= $123

Both should help make your searches more fruitful.  Furthermore, your can RSS the Search results, to track questions about their expertise area beyond static categories or to snipe questions above a certain reward or both.

The TweetBrain Search is an area we will be focusing our enhacement effort. So, should you wish to see a feature implemented, please suggest it on TweetBrain User Forum.

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I have updated my Twitter profile/picture, why I don't see them on TweetBrain?

TweetBrain polls your Twitter profile/picture only periodically for faster responses. Please be assured that your updated profile/picture will show up for sure, just a while later perhaps.

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How can I discourage trolls/spammers?

With one simple mouse click, you can hide such trolls/spammers' pollutants. Once done, they are invisible. Trolls/spammers can't take advantage of your Q&A's visiblity, and they will not come again.

In addition, once you have logged in TweetBrain, if you spot any posted Questions as blatant attempts to spam, please click on the "Report abuse" link under such "Questions".  This mechanism uses the concept of "community patrol", so if a Question is voted by enough TweetBrain users as spam, its poster and the Question will be removed.

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How can I best use TweetBrain?

Although you can view TweetBrain as Twitter Answers. There are many creative ways of using it to your advantage. Some suggestions:

  1. Ask provocative questions. A real example
  2. Set up a contest (A real example) or a contest series like the famous "Guru of the Week"
  3. Conduct a Poll/survey. A real example
  4. Search Q&As for your own projects. A real example
  5. Gauge Customer sentiment. A real example
  6. Expand your Twitter social network rapidly, with quality too. A real example
  7. Enhance your online reputation as a guru by joining the "Top Brains" contest. A real example
  8. Provide value added Twitter based customer care. A real example

If you have come up other innovative ways of using TweetBrain fruitfully, please @tweetbrain. We love to hear from you!

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How many Brainy Friends can I have?

Practically, you can have as many Brainy Friends as the number of people who have answered your questions, although only limited number of them are displayed on your TweetBrain pages.  Note that your "Brainy Friends" are people who have answered your questions and sorted by the quality and number of answers.  As such, adding your "Brainy Friends" to your Twitter Followers definitely improves the "quality" of your social network on Twitter.

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Can I make a suggestion?

We are always looking for ways to make TweetBrain a better service that people want to use more and more each day. You can let us know via our contact page or submit your suggestions to TweetBrain User Forum. Of course, you can always reach us by tweeting @tweetbrain.

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Reward and Fees

How safe are my financial transactions?

They are safe! TweetBrain mandates HTTPS for everything.  We have also put in great effort in securing the site against various vicious attacks. With the consistent use of HTTPS, we also prevent your account from been hijacked. All of such are done with one goal: to keep your data secure and your transactions safe.

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Why should I offer a reward for my question?

With a reward for the best answer, it will be a fun and rewarding experience for answerers - like a contest. As such, most likely you will attract more people to participate in answering your question.

Need to brainstorm a name for your new business? Need a good candidate for a job? Want some opinions for an article? Put a reward and get all the creative minds to work for you!

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How much reward I can put up?

There is no limit on how much reward you can put up! Just remember, a fair compensation will make crowdsourcing a more fun and rewarding experience for both you and the person who answers the question.

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How do I pay for the reward?

TweetBrain works with Paypal to facilitate you to make a payment. You don't even have to put in all your payment info every time you want to make a reward transaction, you can just buy credit on Paypal, the credit will be applied towards your TweetBrain account and used for any future rewards transactions on TweetBrain.

Whenever you are rewarded by answering questions, the money is also credited towards your TweetBrain account.

You can check your balance and transaction history under Account, to buy credit, click the 'Buy on Paypal' button.

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What happens when I put up a reward for my question?

We'll check to see if you have enough credit to cover your reward on your account, if you do, we'll make a note of the payment on your TweetBrain account. Once you choose the best answer, the payment will be released to the recipient and his/her account will be credited. TweetBrain will charge 10% of the transaction amount, it covers the Paypal transaction fee and our Escrow fee.

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How can I see if I have been paid?

TweetBrain will credit your account and will send you a tweet to inform you the good news as soon as you have won the reward. It will show up in your Twitter stream. You can also see your balance under Account.

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How do I withdraw money from my TweetBrain account?

If you have a credit on the account, you'll see a 'Withdraw' link under Account. From there you can cash money out of your TweetBrain account into your PayPal account.

We will charge 5% for the withdraw, minimum fee is 1 cent.

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What is the fee charged by TweetBrain?

TweetBrain charges a 10% transaction fee to cover Paypal transaction fee and our escrow fee whenever a credit is made on the account.

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Can you show me how the reward system works?

Sure. Here are two examples:

    Example 1:

    1. Sam asked a question and he put up $10 reward for the best answer. Sam deposits $11 to cover the $1 fee and the $10 reward.

    2. John is the winner for giving the best answer, he gets $10.

    3. John request withdraw with TweetBrain and got chargeed for 5% to cover the Paypal transaction fee, $9.50 is withdrawn to his Paypal account.

    Example 2:

    1. David deposited $10 to TweetBrain account. After the 10% Paypal transaction fee and Escrow fee, $9.10 is deposited to Sam's TweetBrain account.

    2. He asked one questions for $2, one for $3 and another one for $4.

    3. Alex is the winner for $2 question, Alex gets $2.

    Julia is the winner for $3 question, she gets $3.

    George is the winner for $4 question, he gets $4.

    4. David paid total $9 for 3 questions, he still has $1.00 credit.

     

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Can I change or cancel my reward?

You will be asked to confirm the reward before your question is posted. Once your question is posted, you won't be able to change or cancel the reward on TweetBrain.

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What if I don't get an answer I like?

If you post a question and put up an reward, but after the deadline no one has posted any answers, then TweetBrain refunds you automatically, minus our standard escrew fee.  Nevertheless, if there is even just one answer posted, you must pick the answer and give your reward to the answerer.  TweetBrain is not in the business of arbitraging knowledge, and we are not experts in all fields.  Thus we feel this is the best compromise there is given this potentially difficult situation.

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How will I know that I have won a reward?

TweetBrain will send you a tweet as soon as you won the reward. As a proud winner, you can retweet the news. You can also check the reward under your Account.

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Where can I see my payment history?

You can also see your balance and transaction history under your Account.

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