Should Q&A go local? Google seems to think so…

We’ve seen some high profile launches of Q&A sites recently: Hunch and Aardvark most notably. And then there are the old standbys like the dominant Yahoo Answers and the also-rans like Askville and Answerbag. They’ve all certainly got their fair share of national attention, but are these national destination sites really the way to go, or would Q&A be better applied to local sites and local communities? Google seems to think local is better.

The Stranger and Yahoo Answers both asked the question: Do you think the right person won American Idol? When that search was entered in Google, The Stranger held the coveted first position outranking Yahoo Answers and Entertainment Weekly! And this was on a general national question, imagine how it performed on: Can someone recommend a good optometrist in Seattle? or The best place to buy meat in Seattle.  The Stranger ranked first and outperformed Yelp and Urbanspoon.

This is a David and Goliath story if ever there was one.

The Stranger is a local Seattle alternative weekly of the more salacious/humorous variety. They launched a site called Questionland mere weeks ago. The Stranger is a very popular local destination but must be considered a rounding error next to Yahoo’s 1.3 billion monthly page views.

Although we are all entitled to our opinion about what the best approach to Q&A should be, it is hard to argue that Google must be the final arbiter since they are the ultimate popularity contest and reward the winners with traffic.

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Questionland was designed by The Stranger staff based on a new Q&A application called YouSaidIt. YouSaidIt is Q&A that completely integrates with your local site, from skin to sign-in.

They integrate with Facebook Connect and Twitter providing your site with instant social connections. They cater to two markets: corporate sites that have visitors with questions about products (think FAQ 2.0) and media sites that want to convene their community without the downsides of the forum experience.

If Google juice were not enough, YouSaidIt has spent the last two years specializing in improving conversation on the web. They settled on Q&A because it provided structure and atomic memes that could travel through the social information ecosystem like Twitter and news feeds. They allow extensive comments, but make them a (collapsed) meta discussion, ensuring that the useful information doesn’t get crowded out by noise as it typically does on forums.

It seems like local Q&A may have the big boys beat. You can try it out for free at www.YouSaidIt.com and their premium version is absurdly cheap at $190/month. Compare that to alternative site-specific Q&A products like BazaarVoice that go for hundreds of thousands!

To get Questionland for your site contact Tim Keck, publisher of The Stranger.

Convene your audience but don’t control them

I was just watching a TED video with Clay Shirky discussing the changing media environment. It’s a good summary of the things we are already aware of. But what caught my attention was his lat example where he talks about the Obama campaign. In short, Obama decided to change his mind on the FISA issue and his supporters, ON HIS SITE, formed a group against him. The group rapidly became the largest and most vocal on the site – to the point that Obama issues a press release addressing their issues (he said he would stick to his position). But what Shirky points out, and the group realized, was that the Obama campaign never tried to hide the group, or make it harder to join.

They were mature enough and confident enough to realize that it was their job to convene their audience but not their role to control it.

That speaks volumes about Obama and sets the bar high for everyone else.

Question of the Day

What to eat before/during an 8 hour bike ride?

I learn something new everyday at Questionland so I thought I’d start posting some of those things. I had no idea that there were such weird things to eat when going for a long bicycle ride or other strenuous exercise.

Mahalo hijacked our Q&A tweet!

I guess it’s one of those amusing times in your business when you realize you have become significant enough to get the attention of a quasi-competitor, to the extent that they actually hijack your content!

They grabbed the tweeted question, answered it and tweeted back an answer. The answer was just one of many options provided on Questionland, but it was a pretty impressive stunt. I’d heard they were doing the same for Yahoo Answers, but they are the dominant Q&A player in the world.

I guess we should be flattered.

YouSaidIt quietly launches site sign-up…

We are now allowing people to sign up and get their own sites instantly! Just go to YouSaidIt and press the get started button.

Widget

You can add a Q&A or FAQ tab to your site

You can add a widgets and RSS feeds for your Q&A/FAQ

You can create an inline FAQ widget which allows users to ask questions, searches the question to see if it has already been asked, and displays the answer in the widget.

Wiki

We have added a Wiki with some basic starting information and would be happy for everyone to contribute their wisdom to it.

Other

Facebook Connect issues were resolved.

Request filter on user page was fixed.

Get a personal book recommendation from an expert

Paul Constant, famed book critic of The Stranger, has said that he will happily give people personal book recommendations. Tell him what you like (and don’t) and he will tell you what to get next. He spent a lot of time doing this in his previous bookstore career so he’s a veteran. Summer reading time is upon us… enjoy.

Ask him and/or the Questionland community at The Stranger.