So what’s the deal with question and answer sites where people spend endless hours answering questions from other people who are too lazy to use a search engine?
Apparently, there’s something there, but is it because of the sites’ relative novelty (much like Friendster enjoyed a wave of popularity years ago), or something else?
Well, there’s information in these sites. But it’s challenging to actually find it.
The well-regarded MIT Technology Review took a look at 6 of the largest Q&A sites, and found some good and some lacking.
But it takes a lot of sifting to get truly useful information from these sites. Each boasts a core of devoted members who leave thorough and well-documented answers to the questions they deem worthy. And most of the sites have systems for rating the performance or experience of answerers, which makes it easier to assess their reliability, while also inspiring members to compete with one another to give the best answers. But not all of the Q&A sites do this equally well; after all, the companies that run these sites are selling advertising space, not information.
The best sites? Not surprising, the ones with the most eyeballs (and therefore, the greatest diversity) — Yahoo! Answers, Amazon’s Askville and MSN’s Live Q&A.
Supposed thought-leader Wondir (purchased by my friends over at Revolution Health) tied for last place. Let’s hope Revolution’s UI folks took a sledgehammer to Wondir’s UI when it rolled it out in its new form at Revolution’s website.
(3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)
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3 Comments to
“Question and Answer Sites Reviewed”
“Supposed thought leader”? Wow. That seems gratuitous.
Sorry, Matt, that came from the article:
In the works since 2002, Wondir is perhaps the oldest and most high-minded of the social Q&A services. The original idea of the site’s founders, all search-industry veterans, was to index and organize content from the online reference services provided by libraries around the world.
I like this one because http://www.cornbrain.com it pays to answer questions. It’s kind of has the yahoo answers feel to it.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 27 Dec 2006
