How Time magazine scooped me on the latest social network Wis.dm, I have no idea. They did, however – and now I just have to live with the shame. But, moving on… In their piece entitled “Is Wis.dm Your Next Web Obsession?”, Time takes a look at Wis.dm’s rather novel approach to Web 2.0. Wis.dm is a social network built around the very simple concept of people asking and answering questions. On the site, there are categories of questions that have yes/no answer buttons and a space underneath for comments. Questions range from the very straightforward (“Do you like orange juice?”) to the awkward (“Is cybersex cheating?”) to the thought provoking (“Are humans polygamist by nature?”). Okay, mildly thought provoking. Naturally, pressing yes or no is just the beginning; many questions seem to invite commentary and discussion.

Wis.dm differs from most recent Web 2.0 trends in that it generally works irrespective of whether you know people on the network or not. While sites like Facebook and Twitter function precisely through cementing pre-existing connections, Wis.dm works just as well anonymously – indeed, that’s half the fun.

It sounds deceptively simple – and, at first glance, boring. But it is, in fact, neither. You quickly get caught up in answering and then asking questions. The key lies in both asking intriguing questions and coming up with intelligent or challenging responses. There is a surprisingly addictive feel to the whole thing, and one gets into a groove of constant clicking and typing rather quickly.

Of course, the condescending academic in me (yes, I admit it) wants to complain about the reduction of complex ideas to yes/no answers and the truncated, oversimplified nature of online discussion. And it’s true: most of the questions up there are facile. People ask whether religion is the cause of all evil, or whether all opinions are equally valid, queries which ultimately defy yes/no answers and, let’s face it, are kinda’ stupid.

What is fascinating about the network, however, is how much the questions reveal about the person asking them. When someone asks “Does the Media portray women and minorities accurately”, you can probably learn just as much about the beliefs of the asker as those who respond: in this case, that the individual believes that there is an accurate way to depict groups and that the issues surrounding women and minorities are part and parcel of the same problem.

But Wis.dm is a social network, and it is in this respect that it might fail. Ultimately, I’m not sure Wis.dm is cohesive or coherent enough as a destination to encourage people to form or solidify connections. The questions and those who ask and answer them feel too scattered – there is little to gather around here other than a general sense of curiosity and a desire for ‘self-expression’. As such, Wis.dm feels like another fleeting idea, a temporary project in search of a permanent home.

However, integrated into other networks like Facebook, its bite-size, addictive quality may make a lot more sense and ultimately succeed. There, a platform like Facebook provides the social infrastructure and familiar faces and Wis.dm provides the entertainment. As Mr. Ingram pointed to, the trend towards widgets and cross-platform integration is growing very quickly, and is becoming its own mini-economy. If Wis.dm can learn to capitalise on this new trend of the platform-neutral widget, it may be one of the first sites to succeed off the back and backbone of another ecosystem.

Now, I’m off to think up some more questions.

Time Piece on Wis.dm
Wis.dm
My, umm, Wis.dm