Top Q&A Sites Reviewed

prostoalex writes "MIT Technology Review runs a real-world test of top question and answer sites — AnswerBag, Amazon Askville, MSN Live Q&A, Wondir, Yahoo! Answers and Yedda. The sites are rated on the features and originality as well as availability of answers to the journalist's three questions: 'First, I searched each site's archive for existing answers to the question "Is there any truth to the five-second rule?" (I meant the rule about not eating food after it's been on the floor for more than five seconds, not the basketball rule about holding.) Second, I posted the same two original questions at each site: "Why did the Mormons settle in Utah?" and "What is the best way to make a grilled cheese sandwich?" The first question called for factual, historical answers, while the second simply invited people to share their favorite sandwich-making methods and recipes." The results might be surprising to some readers. While it's generally believed that small startups are better at building efficient solutions, the leaders of the MIT Technology Review are all sites built by Internet giants — Yahoo! Answers, MSN Live Q&A and Amazon Askville all ranked above the competing sites."

Comments

Re:Helium

[vp_development]

I actually had not been to Helium in several months, because although I too liked the idea, the content there was dominated by foreign writers looking to make a quick $.35, which probably went a long way in their native land. The problem with that was that they were flooding the site with very poor content.

I was pleasantly surprised to follow your link and see that things have changed quite dramatically. I actually may send the basic computer security article to some people as a first line of answer their questions (seeing as I'm IT to everyone who even remotely knows me).

fluff story, but its got the letters MIT

[jorghis]

The comparison in the article is kind of silly. It bothers me a little bit that just because something has the letters MIT on it it is perceived as being more interesting or important. If this had been a state school I doubt it ever would have been posted. Even the good engineering state schools dont get much coverage. When was the last time you saw a link to a student newspaper article appear on slashdot from Berkeley, UIUC, or Georgia Tech? Those schools only make it on here when there is "real" news for nerds happening there.