11–20 of 28 posts
Are you famous in your field? No? Then it won't work. HN works because PG is here. Reddit worked because PG was there to help it start. Digg works because Kevin Rose is there. StackOverflow works because Joel and Jeff are there. Unless you've got a large audience to toss at the project on day one, expect a long, hard slog.
Was Kevin Rose known (on a PG level) before Digg?? I would say no.
The amount of time spent in front of a computer with an internet connection in a working day would be the key to success of such a site. It would probably have higher traction among, say, graphical designers than medical staff.
Are you famous in your field? No? Then it won't work. HN works because PG is here. Reddit worked because PG was there to help it start. Digg works because Kevin Rose is there. StackOverflow works because Joel and Jeff are there. Unless you've got a large audience to toss at the project on day one, expect a long, hard slog.
Was Kevin Rose known (on a PG level) before Digg?? I would say no.
In fact, I believe it so much, that's my startup: http://www.chuwe.com - "Stackoverflow for startups and small businesses."
As brandnewlow pointed out, starting it is a massive uphill battle - chicken and egg problem as it were. The software's only small part. We're attacking it in what we hope is a novel way, but you would have to find an approach unique to the area you were targeting, I imagine.
If you're interested, I've been planning on open-sourcing chuwe in a bit after we make it a bit more robust. Contact me and we can work out something if you'd like to just take the software and modify it to your own niche!
Are you famous in your field? No? Then it won't work. HN works because PG is here. Reddit worked because PG was there to help it start. Digg works because Kevin Rose is there. StackOverflow works because Joel and Jeff are there. Unless you've got a large audience to toss at the project on day one, expect a long, hard slog.
I expect that if you're creative, dedicated, and put in the time to tackle the "long, hard slog" you'll have something of considerable value by the end of it. In fact, if you can get the momentum necessary, you'll have precluded others from even entering the field.
But you're definitely corect that the right persona and pre-existing followings basically super-jumpstart these types of sites.
as a business? hard to tell.
Yahoo Answers holds the potential to encompass every use case for StackOverflow and all your offshoots. However, I sincerely believe that the added context that a site like StackOverflow provides (being that it's curated specifically toward programmers) does provide real value. That sort of context injection could certainly be carried over to other verticals (provided the sites can attract seed contributors and curators).
as a site? sure. as a business? hard to tell. Yahoo Answers holds the potential to encompass every use case for StackOverflow and all your offshoots. However, I sincerely believe that the added context that a site like StackOverflow provides (being that it's curated specifically toward programmers) does provide real value. That sort of context injection could certainly be carried over to other verticals (provided the…
The trick is finding a niche that you're interested in, can serve well with the site's format, and has money.
If you find that niche and you approach it in a novel way, then you can (likely) serve it infinitely better than a general questions and answers site like mahalo/yahoo answers.
For law and medicine, for instance, you'd have to fight the mindset of "online is not reliable". In programming it is fairly easy to check if someone's answer is trustworthy because you can go and test it yourself relatively quickly and unambiguously. In other fields establishing the credibility of someone answering a question is a lot more tricky. That said, I think bar associations have (bad) sites to ask each other questions.
I agree with Jeff that you can't make a general site of this sort without an intense amount of moderation. (he said so in a recent SO podcast)
In short, it all comes down to the community. And it is probably hard to figure out what incentives and moderation to have for a given community if you are not a part of it yourself.
Are you famous in your field? No? Then it won't work. HN works because PG is here. Reddit worked because PG was there to help it start. Digg works because Kevin Rose is there. StackOverflow works because Joel and Jeff are there. Unless you've got a large audience to toss at the project on day one, expect a long, hard slog.
Was Kevin Rose known (on a PG level) before Digg?? I would say no.
Are you famous in your field? No? Then it won't work. HN works because PG is here. Reddit worked because PG was there to help it start. Digg works because Kevin Rose is there. StackOverflow works because Joel and Jeff are there. Unless you've got a large audience to toss at the project on day one, expect a long, hard slog.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/
It isn't perfect, but it is chock full of information about the college admission process, and its online atmosphere of politeness and regard for other users' questions readily differentiates it from most other competitors running sites on the same subject. The site operator is pretty good at getting press notices and other free publicity, and quite good at search engine optimization, but mostly he's good at building a helpful and friendly online community.