What new section did we just add to The Pet Wiki? A question and answer section! Before I started The Pet Wiki, I worked for 10 years at Answers.com. They are the people who run WikiAnswers. If there is one thing that I’ve learned over the years, it’s that there is no better way to engage […]
[This post is part of a 4 part series on the key tensions in growing a high quality community-generated content site. It was presented at PubCon, Las Vegas, 2011.] Growing a community is like rocket science Growing a community is like rocket science. It takes an enormous amount of energy per mile to get off […]
[This post is part of a 4 part series on the key tensions in growing a high quality community-generated content site. It was presented at PubCon, Las Vegas, 2011.] “Given that you have worked on this tool … I believe you should recuse yourself of any discussion of this feature.” Wikipedia user suggesting WikiMedia product […]
[This post is part of a 4 part series on the key tensions in growing a high quality community-generated content site. It was presented at PubCon, Las Vegas, 2011] Dan Ariely tells the classic story of mixing social and market contexts. A man finishes Thanksgiving Dinner at his mother-in-law’s house and says “That was fantastic. […]
[This post is part of a 4 part series on the key tensions in growing a high quality community-generated content site. It was presented at PubCon, Las Vegas, 2011] I happened to pick up my (nearly) 30-year-old copy of In Search of Excellence while preparing my PubCon presentation on High Quality UGC. A few points […]
I was thrilled that WikiMania made it to Haifa. It was a great conference. Here was the best of the best: Best Lines Jimmy Wales: We need to recapture the spirit of innovation (in software) and not have a massive debate for each change. (hat tip: @Wittylama) Wikipedia cares about quality. Many articles the average […]
“Joel Spolsky is changing the world. Maybe not your world, but the world of programmers and software companies and the people who work for them.” Opening lines of Seth Godin’s Tribes When we last left our hero (whom BTW I finally met last week when the FogBugz / Kiln tour hit Tel Aviv), Stack Overflow […]
Here’s the essence of my SMX East presentation on Community-Generated Content & Search Traffic: Search Traffic What kind of content gets search traffic? “Quality” content? Content where an SEO expert optimized the titles and meta-tags and sprinkled the right keywords? Content that gets links? Sure, that helps, but it’s not where it starts. Consider the […]
[Reminder / Disclosure: I work at Answers.com, which is in some ways a competitor] Congrats to Joel Spolsky on getting funding from an all star team of investment bankers. Having this combination of great entrepreneurs and great VCs certainly increases this companies’ chances. But the company’s current plan seems to based on two (long shot?) […]
Excellent recent articles in the New York Times, TechCrunch, and All Things D have brought some clarity and insight to the issues surrounding large-scale content-creation sites. Here’s an industry overview: Who? Demand Media’s eHow, Associated Content, New York Times’ About.com, Aol’s Seed.com, Yahoo! Answers, and Answers.com’s WikiAnswers (where I work). What? These sites create thousands […]