Of course, there are also multiple mobile apps to help you make decisions on different things such as food, electronics and more.
Shameer Thaha, co-founder and CEO of DecideQuick (pictured left), realized this and came up with an application to address the need of helping users make their decisions through social media.
Shameer: DecideQuick is an app that hopes to make things simpler on the social media side for users. It helps you make informed decisions faster through social media by gaining from the experiences of others. It aims to help users make a quick decision when buying consumer goods, dining, travel, and education.
I was planning a family vacation and was confused with choices. This problem resonated with my friends, and we thought about the process that most people go through when having to make a decision--searching online, reading reviews, posts and asking a close friend if he or she has had a personal experience.
Tell us more about how DecideQuick works.
DecideQuick uses sentinel, or big data, analytics and a series of cutting-edge algorithms to solve user problems. It goes beyond public domain data and integrates reviews from the user's friends and influencers on social networks in addition to reviews and opinions from domain experts and the general public. DecideQuick's proprietary sentiment- and context-identification engines enable it to analyze the data sets in real-time and provide personalized recommendations.
Any key features you would like to highlight?
DecideQuick is the first ever platform to use social data analytics and co-own private social data to help people make informed decisions about their choices. We analyze public, friends and influencer opinions in real-time, thus saving the user the hassle of searching, reading and assimilating all the information online.
What is the current revenue model for DecideQuick?
Current revenue streams are through affiliate purchases, advertising and through data API. Future revenue streams are data insights and intelligence which will be offered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model.
What is your product's key differentiator?
DecideQuick's differentiator is its inclusion of social data from existing networks in recommendations and it's intelligent recommendation algorithm. Users can search in a natural language.
What are some consumer insights you've gleaned since offering the service?
We've had some very interesting learnings along the way.
We are going to launch a mobile app for DecideQuick shortly as we understand many of the decisions are being made on the move. Currently, we have a mobile Web version of DecideQuick but users can expect a native mobile app soon.
You are working on a B2B-focused platform within DecideQuick. Can you share more?
The business-to-business (B2B) focused product is aimed at helping brands better connect with their customers and get deeper insights into consumer behavior. It will be an innovative product in that it integrates social analytics to help consumers make informed purchase decisions.
What segments do you think have more potential with regard to online peer recommendation?
Consumer electronics, travel and entertainment such as movies and games.
What's your take on social analytics and the way it'll change consumer behavior in the future?
Social analytics has been around for more than three years but it has become more relevant recently as brands have started to understand the value of consumer insights from social data. In the future, social analytics will be used extensively to help both consumers and enterprises as people will have deeper knowledge from the Web.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg once said: "The wisdom of the crowd is moving toward the wisdom of friends." The power of social networks is such that it's become a first point of information.