InterviewUp is following in Yahoo Answers’ very successful footsteps on Monday by officially launching a site where users can share questions and answers with one another.
While Yahoo Answers appeals to people who are itching to ask all types of questions - and others who inexplicably have the time and desire to answer those questions - InterviewUp focuses on the niche of people interested in sharing job interview questions and answers. The site is meant to appeal to both interviewers and interviewees: interviewers benefit from the availability of questions that they might want to use in their own interviews, and interviewees get to check out the questions that might be asked of them and what answers they might want to respond with.
The site is fairly straightforward; you don’t even have to sign up for an account to begin posting questions and answers. Questions can be tagged, voted on, and printed out. You can also set things up so you are notified when certain questions are answered.
Clutter and authority problems are two of the biggest reasons I am personally disinclined to use this sort of site. If I have an important question to ask, I don’t want to throw it up on a site aside questions like “What to eat before wearing a bikini?” or “What’s your Theory?” (both taken from the front page of Yahoo Answers today). InterviewUp doesn’t appear to have that bad of a problem with clutter (yet), probably because there is a defined topic for the site and it’s been in private beta.
However, it has (and will continue to have) the same authority problems that plague other Q&A sites. Without knowing more about who answers my questions, I’m not going to desire strangers’ feedback enough to use the site instead of looking stuff up on my own with Google or Wikipedia. Because of this, InterviewUp’s greatest value will probably come from its repository of questions, not so much from its answers. Now if InterviewUp were to develop a good user profiling system and somehow attract experts to the site, then we’d have a different a story.
A great new Q&A site that pop-up two weeks ago is http://www.ask500people.com/
great mashup in real time with Google Maps to track the answers from all the world…
Don’t know about a niche Q&A site like this. Too much of a job interview is based on an individuals past history.
I think it will be hard for any niche Q&A site to get enough traffic to survive when the main players Yahoo! Answers and Wiki.Answers.com have topics on these areas with substantially more Q’s, A’s, and users.
Jeff, i agree and disagree. I think a Q&A site by itself is not sustainting, but if it is implemented around a particular discipline or set of tools then niche Q&A can survive.
Mark and rons make interesting points in the article. I agree with both premises, niche Q&A in my opinion won’t survive without authority and/or tools around the niche. This niche needs more of a community and while we at Noocleus Media are developing a platform for our own niche sites, I’m all about open source and open information so here’s my two cents to the InterviewUp team.
1. Make it more of a fun and hip Human Resources community where you actually have an HR SME that can offer advice and answer some of the questions and write blog posts.
2. Create a job listings portal as well (similar to dice or monster) but make it subscription based like at a 37 signals Basecamp clip for different types of job posters. I would imagine a free to 29.95, 59.95, and 99.95 a month plan. At the highest plan levels you allow “unlimited” job posts and the ability to answer questions and submit blog posts.
3. Also allow some tempered advertising on the site
Wait a second, that sounds like the Noocleus Media model. At any rate, good luck to these guys, I just gave away an idea and it’s something Zillow already knows, creating a Niche Q&A/community site needs a way to distinguish joe from “the pro answer” and a way to engage the professionals and the amateurs.
Tim you are absolutely right, zilliow and Truila have done quite an impressive job with Q&A. With every discipline people have questions and to surround it with a Q&A gives makes it more powerful.
If i am looking for houses on Truila website, why would i leave there and go to yahoo answers to pose questions and or comments about the real estate industry as alluded by Mark.
But like i said in my earlier post, a Q&A by itself is NOT selfsustaining, unless you are powerhouse like a google or yahoo or even techcrunch.
I think the million dollar question for Q&A sites is how do you use the information you have just ammassed to solve “a problem”. Since all successfully websites/products do exactly that?
Well we are about to launch in 3 weeks and our product answers just that.
http://www.reviewmyplace.com
I reviewed the beta version of this site almost two weeks ago via their TechCrunch Forum invite. I did like their Q/A concept (vote up useful/popular questions) but just concerned about momentum. Yahoo is such a well-established juggernaut in this area.
@Tim & @Ron, interesting observations..
We have taken that exact same approach when developing PayScroll. After looking at a few niche, topic-based QnA sites, we came to the same conclusion as what Mark had pointed. User profiling is essential and that is exactly what we are doing. User creates a skill profile and contributes somewhat to the credibility of the expert answering the questions.
We just launched our public beta. Check us out and I would love to hear your feedback: http://www.payscroll.com
While this site is trying to help people with their interviews in the long run it will just hurt as the “technical” questions get harder…
Google also tried out for building such group like yahoo answer but they closed it later, to build up such community is not a joke, anyway I appreciate anyone come up such interactive feature for job seekers.
@Alfred,
I’ve taken a look. I like the concept a lot. However, while it solves some problems of authority I still think all sites like this one need a SME that can answer questions and create blog posts. Also, right now, it looks like you are just doing a lookup via a GET similar to Indeed dot com for your job posts. What I’m talking about is something slightly different and it may be in your cards later since you may be doing this just so you have content that’s relevant which I totally understand. Niche community sites need authority and that authority allows them to offer other services like answering questions and allowing companies to post jobs. I think there’s more value in free info coming from an authority than a quasi authority system based on an individuals own personal information regardless if he’s “in the field.” Also, good luck to your team and don’t think that the market is crowded with ALL the current job sites because in my opinion, they are all missing the mark since they are missing the idea of an HR expert (which I’m sure they have) in a dialogue with the user base. Then you invite other HR experts to dialogue as well. Think of Techcrunch++ with more of a community feel.
@Dave
Maybe we will build it on our platform if no one takes my advice :). We are close to our beta release but in a different vertical and with our platform, everything is basically in place. It might take us two weeks or a little less to re-brand it and get it right :).