Wisdio, a social QA site like Quora, has decided to up the social QA ante by adding something they’re calling WAR – Wisdio Authority Ratings. These ratings allow folks to recieve answers from authorities on their subject of choice, thereby reducing the number of incorrect answers and, one would hope, increasing the utility of the site.
Founded by Sebastian Zontek, Wisdio aims to help “find the right people to answer questions quickly and reliably,” not unlike many of its competitors. However, the WAR score offers a one-stop shop for folks trying to figure out who to trust and, one would assume, listen to. For example, I can say I’m an expert in Social Media (which I am. I have LOTS of followers on Orkut) but in order to increase my score I need to answer questions about social media. This prevents gadflies from answering questions willy nilly and reduces useless responses.
I’ve yet to find a social QA site that I’d use longer than five minutes but Wisdio is at least trying something a bit different. The company will also attempt to sell content from experts including books, articles, and advice. For example, you could sell your knitting patterns on Wisdio as easily as you could sell your SEO ebook. The goal, then, would be to become the go-to knitting advice person on the site and wait for the huge checks to roll in.
Will Wisdio succeed? I’m generally bearish on these kinds of sites – the Internet is a tumult of voices and rarely, if ever, is the right voice heard at the right time and there are far too many opportunistic “experts” out to game the system – but I’m ready to try anything once and I suspect there are others out there would enjoy Wisdio’s clean interface, WAR rankings, and potential money-making opportunities.