Web 2.0 Question & Answer Sites
August 14, 2006 9:40 AM   Subscribe

So we all have our favourite question site. And we all know the big-brand takes on the space. But now there's the Web 2.0 Q&A sites: Wondir (Wondr?), Oyogi (in beta, of course) and the latest, Yedda. [via TechCrunch]
posted by GuyZero (30 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Don't forget Answerbag.
posted by DWRoelands at 9:58 AM on August 14, 2006


Pancakes!!! Mmmm, pancakes.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:58 AM on August 14, 2006


my first question, submitted to each of these sites, is "ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?"

these names are awful.
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 9:58 AM on August 14, 2006


Is Wondir yet another pregnancy/childrearing site? Looks like 80% of the questions have to do with pregnancy.

Give me MetaFilter, the Straight Dope Message Board, and the Ask/Tell subforum on Something Awful.
posted by elmwood at 10:01 AM on August 14, 2006


Jesus H. Christ there's a lot of pregnancy related questions on 'wondir'.

Poorly worded & poorly answered, at that. Yikes.
posted by bhance at 10:01 AM on August 14, 2006


Maybe AskMe should become AskMetafiltr so we're in compliance with this web 2.0 misspelling garbage.
posted by ninjew at 10:02 AM on August 14, 2006


Yedda...'nother Q&A site? (c'mon, you were all thinking it.)
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 10:02 AM on August 14, 2006


Also - is Yedda related to Flickr somehow? Their default user icon is the same.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 10:08 AM on August 14, 2006


TechCrunch says Yedda is an Israeli startup and I don't think they have any connection to Flickr, other than stealing their icon.

I think many of their questions were seeded by their staff, as there was a long question about explaining a furnace timer with labels in Hebrew, which the poster helpfully translated into English.
posted by GuyZero at 10:14 AM on August 14, 2006


So how long before there is a metaquestion site where you ask, they submit your question all over the place, and bring you back the consolidated results, similar to Dogpile?
posted by beagle at 10:27 AM on August 14, 2006


I'm still a little confused about the whole Web 2.0 thing. What exactly makes these sites 2.0 apps? And how are they supposed to represent an improvement over, say, AskMe?
posted by Iridic at 10:36 AM on August 14, 2006


After answering two questions on Yedda, I decided that the other users should learn how to use Wikis and that was the end of that.
posted by jsavimbi at 10:38 AM on August 14, 2006


Wondir has been here before.
posted by caddis at 10:57 AM on August 14, 2006


I was going to ask the same question, Iridic. One of these sites, forget which allows the "answerers" to sign up for an expertise category/tag. When someone asks a question in that category, the experts in that category are notified via e-mail. It's a nice feature but web 2.0? Erm....
posted by storybored at 11:01 AM on August 14, 2006


What exactly makes these sites 2.0 apps?

Hype.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:15 AM on August 14, 2006


What exactly makes these sites 2.0 apps? And how are they supposed to represent an improvement over, say, AskMe?

Any site that allows users to ask questions and provide answers is by definition 'Web 2.0', Ask MetaFilter included. Heck, MetaFilter itself is 'Web 2.0', it just happens to have been around longer than the buzzword.
posted by jack_mo at 11:21 AM on August 14, 2006


Wondir is baaaaaaaaaaaadddd.
posted by fire&wings at 11:25 AM on August 14, 2006


There's only one question about pregnancy.
posted by cillit bang at 12:08 PM on August 14, 2006


And how are they supposed to represent an improvement over, say, AskMe?

Perhaps the very thing that makes AskMe valuable for me --- namely, the intelligent users and coherent writing --- serve as a bar to others. Hmmm. I could barely stand to scan a page of questions on Wondir, but maybe that says more about me than about them.

And, yeah, bhance, I too noticed that a huge number of questions boil down to "Could I be pregnant?" Yikes.
posted by Elsa at 12:11 PM on August 14, 2006


On lack of preview, cillit bang: ha!
posted by Elsa at 12:13 PM on August 14, 2006


I'm obligated to mention dearinter.net.
posted by kdar at 12:29 PM on August 14, 2006


Surely such awful names are the ultimate proof that all the good domain names are already taken, although I did manage to snag "the419.com" last week. That must have been the last good one.
posted by clevershark at 1:15 PM on August 14, 2006


jack_mo: For that matter, sites that allow users to ask questions and provide answers predate the web.

Sheesh.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 2:38 PM on August 14, 2006


Kirk, really? Are any of these telnet, FTP or gopher-based sites still around? Or those of any protocol?

Unless you're talking about "Dear Abby".
posted by GuyZero at 2:47 PM on August 14, 2006


GuyZero: Kirk, really? Are any of these telnet, FTP or gopher-based sites still around? Or those of any protocol?

Actually I'm pleased to say, yes some telnet systems are still around (iscabbs). For some techincal topics, usenet (google groups) provides excellent support. Mailing lists systems such as listserv (l-soft) have an older pedegree and still have high volume.

"Web 2.0" is just a buzzword rebranding of a design goal which has been a driving force behind innovation using computer-mediated communications systems. Variously this has been called CSCW, CSCL, and "online communities." The rationale for html/http came out of a desire for an easier way to engage in peer-to-peer document sharing.

Which doesn't mean that these new sites are not worthy loci of participation. Advancements in user interfaces are certainly an excellent idea. I'm just wondering, if the innovation of "Web 2.0" is all about social networking and social content, what the heck have I been doing since, about ohh, 1989. And might it perhaps be, I dunno, a stupid idea to ignore that there has been more than 20 years of history behind these social network knowledge-sharing ideas.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 3:41 PM on August 14, 2006


cillit bang, bwaa ha ha ha ha.

I actually couldn't resist answering a question at that Wondir site. I want to create a compilation site of stupidest questions...like "Is it OK to throw up blood at 4 weeks pregnant?" I mean, sheesh.
posted by not that girl at 5:07 PM on August 14, 2006


"Web 2.0" is just a buzzword rebranding of a design goal which has been a driving force behind innovation using computer-mediated communications systems.

MetaFilter is one of the best designed sites on the web, especially when you consider what was out there at its conception. It is at once elegant, functional, simple, and creative in its purpose. Matt repeatedly states that he is not a programmer, but as a site designer he shows real talent. The design is the important aspect anyway, the programming is just task work. I often wonder why he doesn't pair himself with a skilled programmer and set up a design shop.

So much of the so-called 2.0 crap is really more like 0.2 stuff with a fancy window dressing and no substance. For every Google Maps you get dozens upon dozens of gaudy useless crap. It is still all about the content and functionality. Internet Movie Database is another example of a web site with very useful content which is easy to use, yet doesn't feel the need to be all glitzy with useless frills.
posted by caddis at 5:29 PM on August 14, 2006


jack_mo: For that matter, sites that allow users to ask questions and provide answers predate the web.

Sheesh.


That was my point, really - that Web 2.0 is just a new term for stuff that's been going on the web since day one. Literally day one, in - the very first web browser was designed as an editor too, and it's funny that all these years later the hot new thing is users reading and writing on the web. (Though I guess 'Web 2.0' now tends to mean 'reading and writing on the web through a fancy AJAX interface on a site with a funny name', as caddis says.)
posted by jack_mo at 5:47 AM on August 15, 2006


SmileyChewtrain, not related to Flickr. The default icon is indeed somewhat-very-similar (ahem) to Flickr's. The truth - it was a temp thing that we put in place while testing, and... forgot to change later on. We're fixing that :) I appreciate Flickr's work too much to steal their icon.

GuyZero, the furnance question was actually asked by myself, during the closed beta phase, and it was not "seeded" - I actually needed help with this one :) Gotta say though, unlike most other questions, the (very small at that time) Yedda community were not able to help with this one.

Re the Web 2.0 discussions - it does not really matter to us if we're Web 2.0 or not. We did not build Yedda to be "Web 2.0", we built it to be useful. There is still tons of stuff we need to do to make it so of course. Obviously BBSes with their forums and the wonderful Usenet, who indeed predate the web, were already doing Q&A, knowledge exchange, you name it. In a sense, what we tried to do with Yedda is to take the older models, analyze their benefits and shortcoming, and try to build a knowledge exchange service that is able to scale (from the model point of view) to the new reality.
posted by yanivg at 1:34 AM on August 20, 2006 [1 favorite]


Woah - hey, another $5 for Matt. At least one website is making money. Apologies, as I didn't mean to be negative with my comment - my only point was the the site seemed pretty new & small. Though thanks for coming by to comment, yanivg.
posted by GuyZero at 7:03 PM on August 20, 2006


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