LinkedIn Answers
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LinkedIn Answers is a knowledge market service by LinkedIn. It is somewhat similar to 3form Free Knowledge Exchange, Naver Knowledge iN, Yahoo! Answers, and other knowledge markets. LinkedIn Answers has an extensive user base, makes use of LinkedIn's network topology, and has a ’suggest an expert’ feature.
- Linkedin is a social network for business people and professionals, so due to its positioning many of its users are experts in their specific areas. Most experts have to specialize to get a deep knowledge in a certain area. As a result, they have to sacrifice knowledge outside of that area. This division of labor makes an ideal environment for a knowledge market.
- Linkedin uses its social network to determine whom to ask the questions: the idea here is that you will be more willing to provide answers to the questions of people connected to you. In a sense, this is an affinity market. Relatedness to a person who is asking a question gives stronger motivation and more context to provide a better answer. Using network neighbourhood for question distribution is an interesting innovation of Linkedin.
- “Suggest an expert” feature is another innovation of Linkedin Answers. If you don’t have any solutions to the problem posted by your neighbour, you can at least suggest someone who knows the answer. This can help resolve the problem and also provides extra information about people expertise that can later be used for better targeting of specific questions. This is a great feature that was absent in the previous implementations of knowledge markets.
