We have now the next in what seems to be becoming a series of reviews of the new question and answer site Akatoo. May just ended, which means that the month’s promotion also ended. I finished in third (or maybe fourth) place on the leaderboard as ranked by promotional points gained in the month. To the top twenty at the end of the month go iPod nanos, and to those ranked 21-70 go iPod shuffles. April’s contest winners posted on the site at the beginning of May that yes, they did get their iPods in the mail, so I was satisfied but not surprised when I received an email at the end of May 31 asking me to provide a shipping address to an email address at the Akatoo domain. I did so, and come Monday June 2, the next workday, I received an email back asking for a phone number, as the Apple site required one for shipping (from which I gather that they order them from Apple at the end of each month and have them sent directly to the contest winners rather than via themselves).

I sent that information back that afternoon. Come the morning of Thursday June 5, FedEx left a note on my door to let me know that they tried to deliver a package but couldn’t get the required signature (I was sleeping at the time). I signed the slip and put it back out, and come Friday morning, the package was waiting for me when I awoke. In it was, as expected, an iPod nano–silver, 4 GB.  Quite like the one on the far left here.  I opened the shipping box, but haven’t removed the iPod from its case yet. I’m not certain of I want to keep it, or bring it somewhere and get store credit for something else or to upgrade to a larger version. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up on the leaderboard at the end of June as well (I’m sitting at #7 now, having hit #2 and then lost internet connection for a while), and two nanos could well equal a bigger and better model.

So for anyone who’s wondering, I can confirm that yes, Akatoo does give real, legitimate prizes for its monthly promotions.

Whew. Greek is done, after a meh final this morning. It could have been worse, but it was by no means great. Now I just need to study Latin enough to do decently on Wednesday, and I’m done.

I downloaded Quicksilver recently, after reading about it somewhere or other and checking out reviews of it. I can see that it’s useful as a launcher, and probably saves me a little time over wading through the Finder, but it doesn’t seem like a true godsend, which is how people seem to characterize it. Then again, I haven’t gotten into most of the features, so I’m sure there’s a bunch that I’m missing. I could be convinced.

I’ve also continued using Akatoo. I’m mostly rating others’ answers, and answering questions myself only occasionally. One can get enough IKU points from rating answers (indeed, that seems to be the main source) to stay easily in the top 20 (and thereby presumably therefore be one of the contest winners at the end of the month), but it does require a certain amount of time spent reading and rating. Whether there’s worth in it beyond personal gain, I’m not sure, especially if I’m not contributing much of my own anyway. My questions of copyright and reproduction issues are still there, though somewhat muted–I’m certainly not saying anything particularly genius in my use of the site, and I don’t think most others are either. I inquired about the project mentioned in the ad that originally brought me to the site, and it looks like the project is to recruit more people and see what they think of Akatoo, and report that feedback to the company. I’ve never been a fan of the whole “get more people in and you too could win big!” marketing schemes (You know those people who post spam links in facebook groups and forums? I hate those people.), so I’m pretty hesitant to sign onto this.

In recent life news, I’ve agreed to assistant direct a (pending Drama Board approval) production of select plays from 365 Days/365 Plays, by Suzan-Lori Parks, next fall. More on that as it develops.

I signed up the other day for Akatoo after seeing an ad on facebook. The ad says “only students qualify for this online project which can pay over $25 per hour, serious inquiries only.” The ad directs here, requesting that you register for and try out Akatoo and see if you like it before signing up for the project.

So I registered, and I’ve taken a look around. The idea of the site is that members ask questions (any sort), and other members answer them. Then those answers are rated by the community so people can see at a glance what answers are most useful. By taking any of the above actions, users accrue points that add to their IKU (thus far I’ve been unable to find out if that actually stands for anything). There are constant promotions going on in which the leaders at the end of a certain time period can win iPod nanos or shuffles.

On the informational level, Akatoo is not bad. Browsing through, I answered a few questions whose answers I knew, and learned some things I didn’t know previously. Questions vary a lot in quality. Many are specific (”How does a silkworm make silk?”) while others address opinion and are intended to spark debate (”What are your morals, values, and ethics?”). Most questions do seem like they could be useful, though I wouldn’t be interested in the majority, but some are clearly inane.

The thing I’m wondering is what those running the service are getting from it. I’d like to think they really are trying to develop a compendium of knowledge for the good of humanity, but I’m guessing there’s something in it for them too. At the very least, unless they’re funding the contest prizes out of pocket, they need some source of income from the site. I haven’t advertising on the site, except for google ads by the sides of individual user answers. When you answer a question, you can allow such an ad to be placed and the profits donated to a charity of your choice. So unless they’re skimming off of those, it doesn’t look they’re taking in ad revenue.

However, a look into the Terms of Use reveals a possibility. Under the subhead “License Grant,” the terms state that:

• By posting a question or answer to the Service, you automatically grant Akatoo a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, edit, translate, distribute, perform, and display the post, or any part of it, alone or as part of other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or hereafter developed, and to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers of sublicensees. Any deletion of a post by you will not limit the foregoing license grant.
• You further agree that Akatoo has the right to use, without any payment or accounting to you or others, any concepts, know-how or ideas that you post to the Service.

Maybe these is just the standard legalese cover-your-ass jargon that appears in such terms of use; not being a lawyer, I don’t know. And I think it’s not unreasonable to expect that you don’t own exclusive copyright on answers that you freely post in a public forum. But this section allows Akatoo to use your work for their own profit into eternity, in whatever form they like, without any attribution to you. And even if you post it and then decide you want to remove it from the site, Akatoo still has that same license. This seems a little worrisome to me.

Admittedly, most answers given on the site can be readily found already online with a quick google. Most of it is common knowledge (though I’ve found at least one instance of cut and paste plagiarism), in which case this license grant isn’t much of a problem. But I’d caution Akatoo users against posting anything original or anything that they don’t want to see republished in, say, the Complete Akatoo Encyclopedia twenty years from now