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Amazon Launches Askville Answers

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Dec 27, 2006 

Author

Sarah Novotny  |

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Amazon Launches Askville Answers

Less than two weeks after Google killed its paid answer service due to competition from Yahoo, Amazon has now launched its own.

The e-retail leader has been quietly promoting Askville, which launched on December 8th, through email announcements and ads on its website. “Askville is a place where you can ask any question on any topic and get real answers from real people. It’s a fun place to meet others with similar interests to you and a place where you can share what you know,” read one email announcement.

Google’s system was paid, Yahoo’s system is free, but Amazon’s Askville system is something else. Askville uses a virtual currency called “Quest Coins,” which users earn by performing different actions such as asking or answering questions. These “Quest Coins” will be redeemable for prizes and other rewards on the Questville.com website, which launches in 2007.

Users also earn or loose experience points depending on how the community judges their answers. These points determine the user’s level of knowledge in a particular category. The higher a user’s level, the more abilities they gain on Askville.

Amazon guarantees an answer to every legitimate question. Questions remain open for seven days. During that time, the asker will receive up to five answers from the Askville community. Answers are hidden from the community until the Question is closed, keeping question plagiarism to a minimum. If people in the community don’t provide an answer, Amazon turns to its human-powered task system Mechanical Turk.

Askville has been an invite-only beta since October.

Tags: amazon and ecommerce

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