Otavo: Intention Engine

Otavo is an innovative way of searching for, and finding what you are looking for on the internet. Instead of "searching" for what it is you are looking for, you start or join a "quest". If other people are interested in, or an expert at what you are looking for, they can join the quest, and provide links to help you out. It's really all about you stating your intention, and having others help you find out about what you're looking for. It's the very first "intention engine." That is my basic understanding of Otavo, and I've decided to go a little further in depth and give a little bit of background.

I found a few interesting things while playing around with Otavo, and I think that everyone should the product a try. Otavo was made and is run by Amanuel Tewolde. From what I've seen, he's really one of the most active Web 2.0 web app owners. He appears to be very active within the community. There are other web apps, where you really have no interaction with the creator. In this case, he's always around, and available to give feedback to. It's nice to see someone so involved.

Otavo is based on Drupal, as you may notice by some of the pages, and if you ask me it is by far the most innovative Drupal web site implementation. I've never seen something with this sort of usage, be built from a CMS, It's rather interesting. The way the UI is setup, is really easy to navigate, and use.

If I were to give a link about Otavo to someone who doesn't know about computers, they would be able to make their way around, just fine. Otavo has a very interesting business model. The plan, of my understanding, is to track questions, and intentions from quest to quest, and allow marketers, or anybody really, to sponsor a quest. Think about it as buying a keyword like Google Adwords, it's really the same concept, with more precesion.

So people who are looking for a certain item, can find what they are looking for through sponsors, as well as from links that others post. So now getting down to the design of the web app, and all of the little things, that make Otavo great.

There are quests, flosters and points.

*Quests* – I already mentioned quests. This is where the user states their intention, or what they are searching for. Once they have what they are searching for, others will jump into the quest, and post links to pages that can help.

*Floster* – "floating poster" which is basically a floating javascript window, that is draggable within your current window. It allows you to quickly add a link to whatever quest that you want to contribute to. To get a quick glance at what a floster looks like, check out http://otavo.com/new-users for an example.

*Points* – Otavo has a points system. It is based off of how many links you contribute to quests, forum posts, and a variety of other things. Basically you get points for participating. The theory behind the points, are if you have a high score, more people will pay attention to your quests, and you will basically be more recognized.

On the points system page, they mention special prizes for top users. So if that doesn't encourage you, I don't know what will! It is basically like a reputation system. Those are the three things that stick out to me, and make this a very usable service. A lot of web apps have cool features, but I really tend to ignore a lot of them, because they arn't that useful, just "cool".

Otavo takes all of those "cool" things, and allows them to be completely usable, take the floster for example, they are cool, and useful throughout the site.

So yeah, go give the site a try! Check it out.

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Tags: Otavo, Reviews, search intention engine