The best thing about the Web – and Web 2.0 in particular – is that you have a direct link to millions of people around you. When it comes to finding answers to questions, it’s like having access to a huge brain.
Nothing says “huge brain” to me more than MetaFilter, a loosey-goosey blog/forum that anybody can post a comment or question to. It’s open to the masses to read or use.
My favorite part is Ask MetaFilter (AskMeFi). People from all over ask the most random questions, many of which you’d actually like to know the answers to. Such as:
- “I won a trip! But where should I go? I’ve got six choices.”
- “My former employer is telling me to make my COBRA payments directly to them (the employer). That doesn’t seem right to me. Is this common/legal/legitimate?”
- “Should we do anything about our neighbors stealing our cable and crippling our broadband for the past 2 months?”
Our clients ask me why they should have a forum or discussion board, and this is why. This is a forum in the most wonderful sense. It’s clean and couldn’t be simpler. It’s just people putting their brains together.