no.stupid.answers

Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all: social media, social networks… but have we been paying attention to social knowledge?

Robert Formentin, VP of Advertising for WikiAnswers, presents a column on Online Media Daily about the “socialization of knowledge.” Have a read:

The Socialization Of Knowledge: An Opportunity For Brand Marketers

Formentin defines the big two: social media and social networking, and then moves on to define an area not often discussed, which is social knowledge (see? no link to Answers.com for that one).

As Formentin points out:

“Whereas Social Media is amorphous (the basic “unit” is simply whatever I choose to write) and Social Networking is egocentric (the “unit” is, well, me), Social Knowledge is informative (the “unit” is an article or an answer). It’s a framework where anyone - not exclusively experts- can educate other people by sharing what they know.” (source)

Ok, I can dig. And WikiAnswers fits right in there with its wiki Q&A model: education by and for the masses. Or, to paraphrase from Abe:

“…And those answers of the people, by the people, for the people.“

Online Media Daily reports today in a news brief that WikiAnswers “had the biggest traffic gain in the last year among the Internet’s top 100 sites–growing 520% to 10.3 million monthly visitors, according to new research from media-buying agency ZenithOptimedia.”

520%!? I didn’t know percents went that high.

This report tells me a few things:

1. I need to review percentages. Is that sixth grade material or grad school?
2. WikiAnswers is growing so big so rapidly, soon it’s going to need new pants. How do these kids grow so fast?
3. It’s just getting more and more awesome to track WikiAnswers on a daily basis. We hope you’ll agree.