Askville.com: Amazon`s Answer to Social Networking - Touring the Site
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Since I couldn’t get the matter resolved and couldn’t find any other way of contacting someone at the site, I decided to check it out as much as I could without logging in. The home page is very attractive. Despite scrolling down tremendously, it still manages to look clean and not too cluttered.
You get immediate access to the site’s blog, while a sign-in link and a link to the FAQ are clearly visible on the upper right. The question box and button for submitting questions is clearly prominent. From the home page, you can check out new questions, featured answers, and active discussions (more on all of those in a bit).
Scroll down the home page and the next thing you’ll see is a keyword cloud. It’s very easy to read, with the most popular keywords a little larger than the rest. There are two tabs here, “Topics Needing Answers” and “Topics With Answers,” with the latter showing by default. Just below the keyword cloud is a search box that allows you to enter your own keywords to search the topics.
Below the keyword cloud, right on the home page, are two lists: one of weekly Quest Coin leaders (with their names, standing, and icons) and one of all-time Quest Coin leaders. A number of communities reward active participation with this kind of recognition, so I’m not really surprised to see it here; still, it is a nice touch.
The questions range from the serious to the whimsical. “Which is the best Apple computer for a new user?” shares space with “I’m starting a CIRCUS FREAK SHOW…who are you and how will you amaze us?”
Here’s an idea of what one of the answers looks like, so you can see what can be done within Askville’s community:
You can clearly see the username of the person answering the question. You can comment on the answer, report abuse, give your opinion, go to a discussion board, and look for similar questions. You can even send a compliment to the writer. That’s a nice bit of psychology there, by the way; if you could just send a “comment” it might be good or bad, but this way users may be subtly nudged to give other users positive feedback, thus keeping everything pleasant and everyone coming back.
Where things really pay off for Amazon, though, is at the bottom of each answer. Those who answer questions apparently fill out a form that includes a space where they can make recommendations. A number of the answers included book recommendations; for example, one person answering the circus freak show question recommended an album titled “Freak Show.” The recommendation included a picture, Amazon’s list price, and average customer rating. Naturally the image had a live link to the item in Amazon’s catalog.
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