Making Reference a Game
December 11th, 2006 by Christopher HarrisAs reported on TechCrunch, Amazon.com recently rolled out their version of a social question and answer site. The difference is that they made reference work into a game. Askville grants answerers “quest coins” for involvement in the site in addition to “experience points” earned for accurate answers.
So…head down to the local library for reference? Or log in to Askville and game your question? Offering online/IM reference isn’t even a question anymore, it probably needs to be re-evaluated as a base expectation from which we can continue to expand.