Thursday, July 29, 2010

Questioning Facebook Questions

There's been quite a bit of buzz building around Facebook's launch of Facebook Questions. Currently in beta testing, the feature will allow users to post questions that can then be answered by the Facebook community.

The format sounds like it'll be very similar to Yahoo Answers or the question section on LinkedIn, but with one major exception: a few hundred million more users.

I have some reservations about how Facebook Questions will be received, because there is a strong possibility this feature will either become a platform for harassment (like we see in the comments sections of website across the Internet) or a sea of promotions and advertisements from companies.

The reason why I think the second one is likely is because most of this buzz around Facebook Questions has been from corporate and business blogs discussing its promotional potential.

Obviously, we have to wait for Facebook to open Facebook Questions to all 500 million users before we can accurately gauge its impact. And until that happens, the future of Facebook Questions will be a question in itself.