Mark Ranalli is the founder, President, and CEO of Helium.

YouTube does not compensate its users, yet it boasts millions of videos and a strong and loyal community. Other video services have offered revenue sharing with contributors, yet none of them are nearly as popular as YouTube. Clearly, money isn't everything. Why do you think Helium is a better method of collaboratively sharing information and advice, besides the fact that you share advertising revenue with authors?

This is a great question. One of key reasons why we pay people at Helium is that we can, and we believe we should. Helium is the first site that creates a fair and trusted marketplace. Articles on Helium are evaluated fairly, based on the quality of the content. As a result of having developed a fair and trusted platform, we can create a marketplace whereby each article is assigned a 'worth', based on the combined input of Sponsors (how much is the content worth to advertisers), Viewers (how interesting is the subject) and Quality (how good is your specific content). That said, the payment engine is only a small part of the appeal of Helium. Most of our users participate at Helium - not for the economic incentive - but because the platform provides feedback and recognition for their efforts, and helps build a meaningful repository of information. People from around the world are participating in Helium as an information exchange. The key aspect to Helium is that we allow multiple points of view on any specific topic, yet we also systematically sort out the poor quality content, so as a reader, you don't need to pour over hundreds of irrelevant articles. Our community has shared with us that they find the rating process both fun and addictive, and the ability to share their knowledge and 'compete' with others to be very rewarding.

What system does Helium use to control the quality of the content and prevent abuse? Is the power in the hands of employees, volunteers, or the community as a whole?

Helium uses two systems to control abuse and poor quality. First, the Helium rating engine systematically sorts the best content to the top. In practice, viewers only read the best (top 25%) of the articles in any subject. Second, our members have been outstanding in their willingness to be 'floating moderators' on the site. Helium offers our users the ability to 'flag' content that is inappropriate. Each article is read by several different members as a part of the rating process, and inappropriate content is flagged and removed from the site very quickly. Our community has demonstrated a strong commitment to making Helium a great place to learn and share.

It's increasingly uncommon to see startup companies using generic domain names. How did you obtain Helium.com, and why did you pick the name?

At Helium, the best information rises to the top, and at Helium the best writers are able to gain greater recognition based on their ability. Helium is seeking to improve how information is shared and to elevate the knowledge of our users.

We liked the 'feel' of how Helium rises. To obtain the name - we had to purchase it on the secondary market.