Joe Videtto asks:
Makeuseof is one of my favorite sites, what other sites that come close to delivering a similar experience?
You can’t get too much of a good thing : )
17 Answers -
Susanna Speier
May 15, 2012Yes and no. I’ll give you reason why for both:
YES –
There is a question & answer site called Quora that has many similar features. Namely, an active and knowledgable community that can answer general as well as specific questions quite quickly. The crowd sourced topics range from psychology to politics to travel and screenwriting. It runs on an internal credit system. You earn credits when enough people vote up your answers and the amount of questions you are able to ask and who you are able to direct those questions to, depends on your supply of credits. A lot of industry experts on Quora will dedicate time to providing thorough and insightful answers, too. Quora also has an excellent keyword search features and answers get uploaded onto a Wiki.
Incidentally, Quora just raised 50 million dollars for future development. Many critics are saying it is overvalued. Here is the, somewhat critical, Gigaom announcement: http://gigaom.com/2012/05/14/quora-gets-50-million-q-why-a-because-it-can/
Linkedin also has question and answer features, however because Linkedin is more of a professional networking community, the question and answer forums tend to be slightly more business oriented. If, for example, you are discussing how frequently to write blog posts, you might find an eager freelancer asking you to hire them.
Askville and Ask.com are pretty lame but that’s just me. Read, Write, Web offers a pretty comprehensive list of other options. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/question_and_answer_sites.php
Finally, most public libraries have a full time online help staff available. Apparently the writer’s of Mad Men make frequent use of the New York Public Library’s information desk. http://www.nypl.org/
NO:
There is no site like Make Use Of. These are a few of the unique features it offers that you cannot find on other question and answer sites:
(1) Free eBooks on myriad technical topics
(2) The opportunity to get cash rewards for good answers
(3) Giveaways
(4) Tech focused community
(5) Articles to support the needs of the question and answer community
I’ve only been part of the Make Use Of community since March. I’m sure others would be able to add more.
Osama Javaid
May 15, 2012There are mashable.com and techcrunch.com
Dave Parrack
May 15, 2012These two recent articles by yours truly may help you discover more sites worth bookmarking:-
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-websites-cool-computer-geeks-reside/
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-websites-geeks-stripes-bookmark/
Good selection, Dave. One thing I’d like to clarify on, as I only found out yesterday, is that stackoverflow.com is actually a subset of a massively larger behemoth, stackexchange.com, with areas ranging from cooking to writing to DIY. It ain’t just for coders, as I had assumed for a long time.
May 16, 2012Joe Videtto
May 16, 2012I’m loving all the suggestions – these are sites I never would have discovered otherwise. Thanks.
Alan Wade
May 16, 2012If you are not finding the content you want at MUO then whty not just ask for it?
Justin Pot
May 16, 2012SHAMELESS PLUG: a few MakeUseOf writers – namely myself, James Bruce and Dave LeClair – do a weekly podcast. If you want more MakeUseOf in your life I think you’ll like it.
http://technophiliapodcast.com/
/SHAMELESS PLUG
Doom Zilla
May 16, 2012techsupportalert.com somehow? (however my second choice after this one, of course it still cann’t be compared with MUO
but for me is closest one as content)
at Susanna Speier (“There is a question & answer site called Quora that has many similar features”) i think he not asked for Q&A sites, even if with similar context, but rather for any type of site with similar content, MUO however is NOT a Q&A site but much more!
no idea where from “There is a ‘question & answer’ site …”
Himanshu Singla
May 19, 2012Hi Joe Videtto,
There are many other websites that will help you to increase your technical knowledge.One of them is thinkdigit.com.Rest websites you can check and follow me on the below link:
http://www.delicious.com/stacks/view/CPxP6i
Do check it out..and still adding..
Nirmal Shane
May 19, 2012How about Lifehacker.com, Mashable.com ? I spend hours on Lifehacker.
Ryszard Grodzicki
May 19, 2012I’d say lifehacker.com and addictivetips.com These two sites + MakeUseOf can answer most of my questions and provide plenty of new interesting and useful stuff.
Bruce Epper
May 19, 2012If you are looking for a source of information related to business IT, TechRepublic is a good source. They have tons of articles on storage ranging from simple NAS devices, DIY storage systems, up to SANs. Artcles on programming, networking, gadgets. They have sections dedicated to Mac, Windows, Linux. They also have their own Q&A section which used to get really tough questions about complex issues found in large networks, but it seems the membership there has shifted to more home users/hobbyists and a lot of people very new to computing. This has also led to more trolling on the site with regard to the comments appearing with the articles so those conversations are not as interesting as they have been in the past.
Joe Videtto
May 19, 2012Again – loving the suggestions – did not know about any of these sites, and I’ll be frequenting them shortly.
That said – are there any ‘social bookmarking’ site tools that would have led me to the same suggestions, if I used them properly ?
By social bookmarking, I mean sites that let you ‘connect’ with like-minded people – such as those of you that have responded here, and see what websites they most spend their time or find most useful – of course, excluding those they might not want to share publicly ; )
Sachin Kanchan
May 19, 2012i would recommend
-reddit
-lifehacker- one of my faves, with lots of DIYs, latest social news, tech bundles and
links to lots of other such sites and free softwares
-mashable
-cnet
-techcrunch
-addictivetips
-techrepublic
-thinkdigit
-pcmagazine
-gizmodo
but finally all of the many are mainly about newest gadgets and reviews… my all time favorite is lifehacker
July 16, 2012Joe Videtto
May 22, 2012Thanks for all your tips. In my opinion – leveraging the experience of the MakeUseOf users saves many hours of web search, bringing me to the most useful information. Of course, I could look all this stuff up – but it would take a long, long, time.
That said – if I post some of the same questions I’ve already posted on MakeUseOf to, say, Lifehacker, do you think I’ll get some additional information from the lifehacker users that don’t frequent MakeUseOf ? Or are all you heavy hitters on MakeUseOf also fueling a lot of Lifehacker answers – that is to say, are you ‘two-timers’ : )
Joe,
If you post your questions somewhere else, you may get different answers or largely the same. It really depends on the question.
May 23, 2012Thanks Tina – I know that MakeUseOf ALWAYS gives me great suggestions. I’m sure if these sites have as large, knowledgeable, and giving group of active members of MakeUseOf, I’ll get some of the same answers at least. I think where I was going is if there are groups of users there that don’t frequent MakeUseOf, I may get some additional pertinent leads or suggestions simply because I’m reaching a whole new group of knowledgeable users that do NOT frequent makeuseof, and may have something more to add. So my thought was it also depends on the new users that respond and have something to add that maybe wasn’t covered in MUO answers.
I think my point is – don’t think I’m a traitor if you see some small subset of my MakeUseOf questions on another site, MakeUseOf is still my number one GoTo : )
(don’t know if there are any Seinfeld fans – but there was an episode about Jerry changing his barber after he got a bad haircut, and the fallout of hurting the old barber’s feeling, very funny – just want people to know that MUO gives a great haircut)
May 24, 2012Joe,
We don’t take offense if you go somewhere else to get Qs answered. And I’m pretty sure that you will find a different crowd on other sites and definitely not the same combination of people.
May 25, 2012guthagowtham
May 26, 2012Howtogeek.com
lifehacker.com
addictivetips.com
labnol.org
techcrunch.com
For Best free apps..
http://softpicks.wordpress.com/
Charlie Player
July 29, 2012well there is like pcworld.com, ign.com bt i couldnt find better than
makeuseof…
kumar raja
October 18, 2012tradepub.com is a free site u can download ebooks