Coming from the founder of Wikipedia, Wikianswers is using the same foundation and technology that made Wikipedia the most successful open online encyclopedia. Wikianswers aims to be your ultimate resource for one true, consensus question and answer wiki-style site.
Although this goal maybe a bit hard to realize, since there are already a handful of Q&A sites available online today, the fact that Wikianswers uses the same formula as Wikipedia might actually make it a runaway hit.
The fact that another similar site has established itself already in the niche and bearing the same name as Wales’ Wikianswer might also work in favor of Wales Q&A site. The other site is called Wiki Answers, also a Q&A site which is part of Answers.com. Interestingly, the two sites – Wiki Answers and Wikianswers is almost identical except for the site design. The site structure and content is almost similar as well. Although Wiki Answers looks more attractive than Wales wikianswer.
According to a comScore data in December 2008, Q&A site Wiki Answers got 26.7 million unique visitors while Yahoo Answers had 144.7 million unique visitors in December. If you add the unique visitors of other Q&A sites including ChaCha, Mahalo Answers and other similar site, it seems that this kind of service is a pretty good investment. This is probably one of the reasons why Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has launched his own Q&A site called Wikianswers.
One major difference between the two sites is the fact that Wikianswers is open to anyone, just like Wikipedia. Meaning anyone can provide answers to question posted on the site even without registering. Although this might be a convenient way of getting people’s participation in the site, not requiring users to register might open up the possibility of hacking and bogus answers to be posted on the site. But it is definitely a sure way to encourage users to partake of what the site has to offer.
