A Rush over Knowledge Sharing

Is it a coincidence or trend? An increasing number of services hovering over knowledge sharing are landing on my radar these days. It is an interesting step in the evolution of the social Web toward connections based on knowledge, which seems to reveal a need to imagine the Web after Google, recalls initiatives like Aardvark, Mahalo and Quora, and signals a quest for meaning for Internet users in a post-Facebook era.

So the state is striving to create a global opinion network. Its functionality is simple: You join the platform, choose a subject and give your opinion. Better than on review websites like Yelp or Citivox, your opinion is delivered in the form of keywords, which you can either choose from a list or create. Little by little, this collection of opinions creates a new layer of tags applicable to any online content.

With Notorious, you get experts in your databank. Have a question in the near future regarding beauty, health, nutrition, even design or maybe of a professional nature? Choose your expert, pay the listed fee, and get advice from a pro right away.

While Notorious is health and beauty oriented for the time being, Hackhands offers a similar service model for programmers. The site proposes finding a mentor on demand to help you debug a piece of code, for example. While these questions could easily be answered thanks to web forums or discussion threads, Hackhands noticeably simplifies the process by putting you directly in touch with a human.

Humans are also at the center of Skillshare, the new-generation global course. For $10, $15 or $20 you can learn the basics of marketing or FinalCut. An exchange place for students and teachers, Skillshare bets on everyone being a potential student. Each has an expertise to transmit to others, and the site simply makes the connection — a little bit like how Ebay revolutionized trade in the old days.

Last, knowledge sharing is what makes Producthunt, a form of trend hunting, go round. The idea is to more quickly discover new services or start-ups by way of majority suggestions. In sum, it is a trend-spotting collective, a golden nugget discovered thanks to Thibaut Le Levie — thank you!

This evolution is interesting for the media because it signals a new layer of intelligence on the Web: After the social layer on the Web, there is the knowledge layer.

It should also be pursued because it allows for contextualizing the content produced in abundance over these past years and provides interesting examples on the subject of micropayment.

On this topic, there is an interview with an artist who responds to questions for $2 that is also interesting.

In the end, it is a new approach to adding a little bit of order to today’s Web: We can access many things, but we need more filters. We are connected to many people, but more and more, we need to know why and, more and more frequently, how.