Amazon has recently launched its newest site, i.e. Askville. It is a site for sharing knowledge, in term of functionality, a site that works similarly to Yahoo! Answers, Yedda, and Baidu Zhidao. Askville is a platform that allowed users to post a question to the community and let the members of the community to provide the best answers to that particular question. On top of this main purpose, Askville can provide all the creative, and yet delivery resources necessary to cultivate a huge group of “Askers” and “Answerers” that are meaningful to the whole society.

What set them apart from the other similar platforms is their added features. They have implemented a new voting system that is now being combined to the Askville Store, in which users can use the “Quest Gold” to redeem for $100 or $50 Amazon.com gift cards for a limited period, i.e. start from November 29, 2007 to December 31, 2007. However, the ultimate site for an user to redeem their Quest Gold which is Questville will only be launched in next year.

If you really want to get participated in Askville, you’ll have to understand how this Quest Gold be rewarded, what is the Raw Score, Final Rating, Experience Points, Best Answer Badge as well as Gold Payout. Their system is somewhat complicated, it seems that Askville is building a platform that extensively around the concept of “more is more.” Apparently, Amazon want Askville to serve as an ultimate place for users to ask…answer…meet…play! Some of their ideas pertaining to how question to be answered are very good, such as a new question to be open for 7 days, and a maximum of 5 answers per question to be received for a duration of 7 days showed that Askville only want the best and high-quality answers to a question. The other feature is an user can ask a question anonymously, which in turns protect an user that did not want her identity to be disclosed in the public. On behalf of the Answerer, Askville provide Answerers the option to appeal for any final rating for the answers they gave within 90 days after they posted their answers.

Indeed, in many ways, Askville is a Web 2.0 site that resisting the pressure to be a general Q&A or voting site. They have their own distinctive voting system. Also, in order to maintain the answer integrity, they also hide the answer of a particular question so that the potential Answerer will not get any clue on how to tackle the question. With all the above features rendered, and the branding power of Amazon, Askville is showing its promise to the existing users, and thus increasing its traction on the Web.