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12.27.06
Amazon Launches New Q&A Service
 By
Joe Lewis
The rising trend of social media and user-generated content continues as Amazon touts the launch of its Askville service, a site geared at asking and answering just about any question that you can possibly come up with.
The announcement comes shortly after Google's decision to stop development of its own Q&A project.
So what exactly is Askville going to look like? Here's an except from the FAQ:
Askville is a place where you can share and discuss knowledge with other people by asking and answering questions on any topic. It's a fun place to meet others with similar interests to you and a place where you can share what you know. You can learn something new everyday or help and meet others using your knowledge. Askville even helps you learn by giving you cool tools to help you find information online while you are answering questions. It's all about sharing-what you know and what you want to know-so go ahead and meet someone new today and Askville!
I wonder what Amazon is trying to accomplish with this kind of service?
Yahoo's "Answers" feature has a clear benefit in that it is incorporated into the search results, so there's a nice measure of integration between paid, organic, and user-generated results for a given topic.
Also, reading through the FAQ is reminiscent of preparing for Dungeons & Dragons campaign. All this talk of "experience points" and "quest coins" makes me wonder if I should go out and buy some dice and roll up a character sheet so I can join in on the party.
In any event, it will be interesting to see where Amazon decides to go with this venture. It looks like participation is invite-only, but I've decided to throw some questions out there for the sake of principle. If you're a beta participant, be a good sport and ask these for me!
"What's so newsworthy about Paris Hilton, anyway?"
"Is Digg actually an enemy of free speech?"
"Will the Patriots win the Super Bowl this year?"
"Is there anyone more lovely than Kate Beckinsale?"
"SEO: Is it bullsh*t?" (Okay, I can't take credit for this one. You can submit it on behalf of Jason Calacanis, Sequoia Capital.)
That's ought to be enough for a good start, don't you think?
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