Media companies are not the only ones looking to take advantage of the popularity of social networking sites. Online retailer Amazon.com is throwing its hat into the ring as well with a question and answer site called Askville.
Similar to Yahoo Answers, Answers.com and wis.dm, Askville allows users to post any question they want and get answers from real people.
Amazon quietly launched a beta version of Askville last December. But this week, Amazon e-mailed several of its customers with news about this site with the following e-mail message.
You are Invited!
“As a valued Amazon customer, you have been specially picked to get an early look at a new website Amazon has just launched called Askville.”
Askville is a place where you can ask any question on any topic and get real answers from real people. It is 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 every day or help and meet others using your knowledge. It is new, and best of all, it is free!
At first glimpse, the site possesses considerable similarity to Yahoo!’s Yahoo Answers, Answers.com and privately held wis.dm. Upon closer examination, there are some notable differences.
For one, Amazon lets people rate other’s answers with something called experience points. Users vote on how valuable an answer to a certain question is and based on the results, people can gain or lose experience points.
In addition, these experience points, as well as other activities such as simply asking a question, voting on a question or even logging on to the site, help users acquire something Amazon calls Quest Coins.
Amazon describes Quest Coins as virtual currency that can be used on Askville that users can earn by participating on Askville, on a yet-to-be launched site called Questville.
To encourage participation and reward great answers, Askville users can earn Quest Coins based on specific actions you take. The table below summarizes the number of Quest Coins you can earn for different actions. Eventually you will be able to use Quest Coins when we launch Questville.com (coming in 2007). In the meantime, collect as many Quest Coins as you can and show everyone how active and helpful you’ve been on Askville.
- Coins earned by an answerer for submitting an answer to a question and for voting on other answers are revoked if the answerer’s response gets a final score of “Weak” or “Awful”.
- Coin paid out only if the answer gets a Final Answer Score of “Good” or “Great”.
You can also earn bonus Quest Coins based on what level you have reached in a topic.
Perhaps more intriguing would be the possibility that Quest Coins could be redeemed not for virtual bling for your avatar but for real purchases on Amazon.com.
Maybe 500 Quest Coins will wind up being equivalent to say, $10 off a purchase of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” or the Season 1 DVD set of “Heroes.”
If that is the case, Askville and Questville could help stimulate more sales at Amazon.com. And of course, if Askville and Questville also become popular enough so that they can sell online advertising then that’s potentially an even bigger windfall.
But it remains to be seen if Amazon will be able to become a hit in social networking or not. After all, other efforts to branch out beyond retailing haven’t exactly fared well. Most notably, Amazon’s ballyhooed A9 search engine failed to live up to the considerable hype.