PMI Internet

Our recent article on the new breed of Q&A sites has attracted attention to this evolving technology. The article refers to several of the key players in Q&A, including Replyz, Swingly, ChaCha and Askville. Each of these services takes a different approach to online information exchange, offering users a broad spectrum of options. Allen Searls, the online community builder from the Replyz team, was kind enough to sit down with us recently to answer some questions about their unique take on things.

1. Where did the idea for Replyz come from?
Reflecting on the state of knowledge-sharing and the real-time Web as of 2010, it’s become clear to the whole team that while there are countless Q&A sites, and millions of Q&As posted every day across the real-time Web, there is no single service bringing all those synapses in the global brain together. Replyz was founded toward that end.

2. What Q&A problems do you see your service addressing?
If you want to ask your question to the entire real-time Web, Replyz lets you do that. If you would like to see the questions people are asking across the real-time Web, Replyz shows them to you. You can reach out and respond in real-time, or watch others’ replies appear in real-time. Better, you can subscribe to topics and get alerts the moment someone asks or replies to a question related to your expertise, company, interest, etc. Naturally, you can have a real-time conversation with the asker if you like. While we often use the Q&A terminology, Replyz ultimately supports starting or joining any helpful conversation.

3. Your service seems more social media-savvy than others…is that a focus for you?
One trend in social media that we believe is very positive and that we like to see more of, is the idea of not having to “go to” a site to engage with other people. Towards that end, we’re striving to enable people to ask questions from wherever they are, and to reply from wherever they are.

4. What makes Replyz unique?
Q&A sites and silos are popular now. Real-time search engines are popular now. But what you don’t see are real-time Q&A engines or live conversation engines. Imagine if you could ask the real-time Web questions as readily as you enter searches into Google, and instead of getting search results, you get people replying to you in real-time. On the flipside, imagine that after performing a regular search, you could see a thriving list of conversations happening right now on your topic. And you could watch or join any of these unfolding conversations with one click. That’s the kind of animal that Replyz is growing into, and what makes us unique.

5. Do you have any rules governing content on the site?
Yes. We filter the stream we pull in from across the real-time Web to focus on helpful conversations. And anyone can flag any question or reply for moderator review. Of course, we believe in openness and democratic, community self-governance, so that guides our long-term approach. Naturally, our users should have more say in what they’re going to see than we do.

6. How do you see Q&A evolving in the next few years?
Traditional Q&A sites and silos will probably begin to open up and share with one another and the real-time Web as a whole. “Q&A” may no longer be something that some of us do now and then in our favorite Q&A community, but an essential tool like email and search that all of us use as part of our daily lives on the Web. Naturally, live Q&A and conversation engines and services like Replyz will emerge to help make that happen. Eventually people will be able to ask anywhere, answer anywhere and participate in the global brain anywhere.