Comments on: Web 2.0 Question & Answer Sites

Web 2.0 Question & Answer Sites

GuyZero — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 09:40:12 -0800

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]

By: DWRoelands

DWRoelands — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 09:58:36 -0800

Don't forget Answerbag.

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 09:58:41 -0800

Pancakes!!! Mmmm, pancakes.

By: StrasbourgSecaucus

StrasbourgSecaucus — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 09:58:43 -0800

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

By: elmwood

elmwood — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:01:38 -0800

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.

By: bhance

bhance — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:01:55 -0800

Jesus H. Christ there's a lot of pregnancy related questions on 'wondir'. Poorly worded & poorly answered, at that. Yikes.

By: ninjew

ninjew — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:02:18 -0800

Maybe AskMe should become AskMetafiltr so we're in compliance with this web 2.0 misspelling garbage.

By: SmileyChewtrain

SmileyChewtrain — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:02:19 -0800

Yedda...'nother Q&A site? (c'mon, you were all thinking it.)

By: SmileyChewtrain

SmileyChewtrain — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:08:27 -0800

Also - is Yedda related to Flickr somehow? Their default user icon is the same.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:14:51 -0800

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.

By: beagle

beagle — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:27:19 -0800

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?

By: Iridic

Iridic — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:36:04 -0800

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?

By: jsavimbi

jsavimbi — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:38:54 -0800

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.

By: caddis

caddis — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:57:42 -0800

Wondir has been here before.

By: storybored

storybored — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 11:01:14 -0800

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....

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 11:15:32 -0800

What exactly makes these sites 2.0 apps? Hype.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 11:21:50 -0800

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.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 11:25:14 -0800

Wondir is baaaaaaaaaaaadddd.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:08:20 -0800

There's only one question about pregnancy.

By: Elsa

Elsa — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:11:01 -0800

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.

By: Elsa

Elsa — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:13:25 -0800

On lack of preview, cillit bang: ha!

By: kdar

kdar — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:29:23 -0800

I'm obligated to mention dearinter.net.

By: clevershark

clevershark — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 13:15:42 -0800

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.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:38:37 -0800

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

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:47:31 -0800

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".

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:41:48 -0800

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.

By: not that girl

not that girl — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 17:07:38 -0800

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.

By: caddis

caddis — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 17:29:30 -0800

"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.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 05:47:22 -0800

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.)

By: yanivg

yanivg — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 01:34:29 -0800

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.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 19:03:15 -0800

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.