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"Stephen Fry is a British institution, and if you don't live in the UK there's still a pretty good chance you've heard or seen him somewhere.\r\nAs such, when Fry gets uses and invests in\u00A0your fledgling startup, you know you're off to a good start but London-based Ticckle can boast just that.\r\n\r\nXan Blacker, co-founder of Ticckle, explained to The Next Web that Ticckle's main aim was to &amp;quot;tickle your brain&amp;quot; through discussion of ideas - he actually doesn't really like the word debate, he explained. You see, words like debate or grass-roots have a strange effect on people, a few see it as a call to action or something weighty, while the rest just switch off altogether.\r\n&amp;quot;What we try to do is almost subvert the concept of debate and reduce it down into something that's quite small - it's just an idea, it's just a Ticckle. It\u2019s something that everyone can participate in.\r\n\r\nWhen you do that, talking about politics or all these kind of things isn\u2019t just for academics and intellectuals, it\u2019s more universal. That\u2019s essentially what we\u2019re getting at. People, especially young people, are much more politicized in a way that they haven\u2019t been in the past and we want to provide a focal point for people to talk about ideas, opinions, a changing world but at the same time keep it fun and not be pretentious.&amp;quot;\r\nAimed at the UK for now (although accessible from elsewhere), the platform itself is straight forward. You pretty much just need to sign up, record your 30 second video clip (Ticckle) and let it loose. If you tickle someone into responding, they\u2019ll Ticckle you in response. It all sounds very light-hearted. And there\u2019s no end to it, that\u2019s not the point. It\u2019s for spurring debate, not solving problems. There are no right or wrong answers.\r\n\r\nTicckle itself \u00A0has been operating in stealth mode for more than nine months already, but in June had its proper launch for the iOS app, with iOS being the target of choice not least because of Stephen Fry\u2019s known love of Apple, and therefore the amount of traffic he drives every time he posts a Ticckle.\r\n\r\n\r\nBanish the trolls\r\n\r\nOne of the happy side-effects of using video to interact is that it puts a face to an opinion. The internet is a large, unregulated wilderness in terms of trolls, but Ticckle hopes that having to be so open with identity will foster truly interesting conversations and ideas.\r\n\r\nFry\u2019s involvement is largely thanks to Blacker\u2019s co-founder Richard Hardisty. The pair had a scheme to write him a letter and leave it in a secret drama group that Hardisty and Fry attended, but gave in and did it the old fashioned way: via his Public Relations people.\r\n\r\nShortly after, Hardisty and Blacker met up with Fry and he was on board with the idea. Like the two co-founders, rather than looking to make quick millions he was intrigued, Blacker said.\r\nWhile Fry\u2019s financial investment in Ticckle is undisclosed, to date the company has raised around \u00A3100,000 from four angel investors. Fortunately for the pair, the investors they found were so taken with the idea that they backed it without even seeing a MVP (Minimum Viable Product).\r\nThat\u2019s not to say they don\u2019t want to turn a profit, just that it isn\u2019t the primary motivation, Blacker said proper efforts to monetize the site weren\u2019t due for another 12 - 14 months. There\u2019s even some very early talks with Babelverse to see if work can be done for translating videos, which would ultimately enable global debates with no language barrier, but Blacker stressed it is very early days.\r\n\r\nWhether or not the duo will be able to effectively monetize the platform won\u2019t be known for another year at least, I suspect that advertisers might not be too, ahem, tickled by the idea of their ads appearing before or alongside controversial discussions, but as a platform for debate that has aspirations of breaking down language barriers and banishing trolls, there are worse things to aim for.\r\n\r\nAnd yes, that is a picture of Stephen Fry scratching rather than tickling his forehead. You try and find one.\r\n\r\nFeatured Image Credit - AFP/Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/uk/2013/07/24/stephen-fry-is-tickled-by-ticckles-online-debate-platform/>