shouldi is an instant social advice service that lets you quickly and easily get and give advice with anyone, on any topic, communicated anyway. You can exchange advice with friends or the whole world. You can communicate with shouldi using a mobile phone, your favorite instant messenger, email, or the shouldi website.

Imagine that you're out shopping and you're trying to decide between two pairs of jeans. Take photos of yourself in each using your camera phone and ask shouldi which pair makes you look best. Tell us you need an answer in 5 minutes. Tell us to ask the world. We'll get your advice request out to each person using their preferred communications channel, add up the answers as they come in, and give you the answers from your friends and the world on your phone.

For an overview of shouldi, see What is shouldi?

Normally, you are doing one of two things with shouldi. You are either getting advice or giving advice. You get advice by posting a question or advice request to shouldi using the website, your phone, instant messenger or email. Your question can include pictures and details such as when you need an answer, whether you want to ask your friends or the entire shouldi community, and whether this shouldi is about a specific town.

shouldi takes your advice request and communicates it to the your advisors using each person's preferred communications channel. shouldi adds up the advice responses as they come back. When the time is reached when you want your answer, shouldi will communicate final results to you using your preferred communications channel.

Almost anyone. You must be 13 years or older to use shouldi. Please see our Terms of Service for details. Although anyone 13 or older can use shouldi, the site is only available in English right now. It is possible to ask shouldis or offer advice in other languages, but not everything has been thoroughly tested for other languages yet. More importantly, shouldi does not currently support sending or receiving mobile phone text or photo messages to or from areas outside the United States and Canada.

shouldi does not charge users for any of its services. However, depending upon your plan, your mobile phone service provider might charge you for text or photo messages that you send to shouldi or text messages that you receive from shouldi. Please check details with your wireless service provider to see what you will be charged for sending or receiving text or photo messages.

So, sending a text or photo message to shouldi is no different than sending a text/photo message to anyone else. We don't add any charges. Same goes for receiving a text message from shouldi. We won't send you any photo messages.

Just click the sign up now button on the shouldi home page and tell us what name you want to use. It's really easy and it's totally free.

Asking for advice is easy. Just enter your question in the shouldi box at the middle, top of any page. You will see the text that says, "ask a question now -- you know you want to. just click here and start typing."

Press the shouldi button on the right side of the box to submit your question. If you are not logged in or have not signed up with shouldi, you'll automatically be asked to log in or sign up.

It's up to you. You can make a shouldi private which means that only you and your friends can see and respond to it. You can also choose to make it public which means that the whole world can see and respond to it. Each time you enter a shouldi you can tell us whether you want it to be public or private. You do this by clicking "show options" and then selecting "ask: the world" or "ask: my friends". To make it easy, you can tell us what your normal choice is and then you only have to change it in special cases. Just go to the communications tab of your user profile and set your normal choice for "send shouldi's to:".

You will see lots of advice requests from your friends or the world in the center of most shoudi pages. Just click on a request that interests you to begin offering advice. You'll get a box to enter your answer and any comments. If you are not logged in or have not signed up with shouldi, you will automatically get a chance to log in or sign up.