Wondir Launches Revamped Site
I first wrote about Wondir back in November. I really liked the promise of the site - a sort of community based Q&A service, but since then it seemed the site, which was in beta, had been quiet. Well it's back, and I had a chance to catch up with founder Matt Koll recently.
Koll has learned a lot tweaking Wondir over the past few months. The site recently crossed its millionth question and answer, and is doing around 6-7,000 questions a day. Back in the Fall, they were doing 2-3,000, so clearly something is working.
Sure, Google recently incorporated answers into their index, but Wondir is an entirely different beast. Google's (or MSN's, or Ask's) question answering is a very broad and very shallow play, Wondir is the vertical engine of Q&A. And why not? If Koll can manage to get a really useful community working on creating base pairs of questions and answers, he'll have quite a content play on his hand - and that means all sorts of possible business models. For now, he sees AdWords as his friend. His AdWords CTR has been impressive - reportedly 4%. Clearly, answering specific questions is good business.
But Koll has his work cut out: he has a chicken and egg issue with traffic, and he has to determine where to place his resources - should he focus on the syndicated model (placing private label Wondir implementations on other sites like ichef) or pursue a model where Wondir becomes a massive destination? I suggested he try to populate each with the other, creating a kind of Q&A Commons, and he liked the idea, but publishers tend to like to keep their answers to themselves.
There's more to come: Koll has instituted a rating system for answers which has helped him in formulating a ranking algorithm of sorts for his base pairs. Consider it a "helpfulness index" - like PageRank for Answers. It's not quite baked yet, but it should be worth watching. Also, expect some interesting RSS news from Wondir soon, Koll hinted. Net net: I'm going to keep tabs on Wondir. If they can get a full head of steam and create a community of intentional traffic, there's much to learn there.
Release in extended entry.
Comments
Interesting. There are already a number of sites using this model, some in niche markets (check out www.dearcupid.org to see what a modern agony aunt looks like with social answers, RSS feeds and more). Also sites like www.advicenators.com and www.answerbag.com provide generic services just like wondir.com. It will be interesting to see who comes out on top. My guess is there MAY in some areas be a bias against those services that are too commercialised.
It seems several sites keep popping up that provide answers to general knowledge questions. One of the more recent ones I have come accross is www.askipedia.com which is a little different, as they claim only pre-qualified experts answer your questions.
Where did all the people fo?
Where did all the people go? I was not abusive on your site, yet I was booted off. I feel your site needs some people to oversee who gets the "report abuse button" pushed on them , to see if the complaint is legit. If they are reported on for no reason, the button pusher should get the boot. Does this sound fair to anyone?
I think you need to add a button kids can use to research their basic "am I pregnant?" questions. It seems like every 5th question is a girl wondering if she is pregnant. If a nurse practioner or physician would compose a list of answers to these constantly asked questions, it would save a lot of repetition.
There should also be something written for people to click on if they are in crisis and feeling suicidal. It should tell them what resources are available to everyone in the U.S. such as calling an operator and asking for a suicide hotline number.
Additionally when people ask questions they need to be prompted to use more specific information. Their approx. age, gender would really help. The nonspecificity really effects the accuracy of the response one can offer.
It would be great if there was a spell checker. These questions are sometimes impossible to respond to due to the extreme spelling difficulty many of these kids are having.
The quality of this site would improve markedly with the modifications suggested above! Thank you for considering these suggestions.
Hello, Wondir has crashed on me for the last 7 weeks and i can not get back on site. It says there is a error, please help mt to get back on wondir Thank you
Hello, Wondir has crashed on me for the last 7 weeks and i can not get back on site. It says there is a error, please help mt to get back on wondir Thank you
Hello Wondir,
Please could you help me get back onto wondir, as it keeps coming up error and temporarily overloaded.
Thank you regards.
Caroline
Hello Wondir,
Please could you help me get back onto wondir, as it keeps coming up error and temporarily overloaded.
Thank you regards.
Caroline
Leave a comment