So I found a new addiction last night. I decided to check out http://stackoverflow.com last night for the first time. Yes I know I'm late to the party, but since I love to share....I will :D

What hooked me was three things that were really easy to achieve:

1) Registering and logging in.

2) Navigating and finding interesting and relevant information.

3) Helping others else out with answers to their questions.

I haven't actually asked a question yet, although from what I've seen that's just as good as the rest of it.

Another thing that leaves me in awe is that nobody has done this as good as stack overflow before. Q&A websites aren't a new thing. But Jeff Atwood, Joel Spolsky et al. simply took an old format and brought some new innovations to it, as well as spending some real effort in the finer details.

For those of you as yet unaware of stack overflow, the primary driving force is a score based incentive system that encourages users to contribute and to contribute appropriately. The more appropriately you contribute, the higher the level of privilege you gain. You can essentially earn your moderator status without permission from err...other moderators.

Even if you don't necessarily provide the best answer, the scoring system allows other people in the community to call out the bad answers and provide better answers. Once you've earned yourself a good enough score (reputation) you can also mark down answers you feel to be erroneous. Anyway I've harped on about how it works for long enough....visit the site and check it out for yourself.

This new(ish) website is a great example of somebody or a group of people just getting in there and doing something and doing it better. Rather than trying to dream up the next killer app, they took a generic idea and absolutely nailed it like its never been nailed before.

I know I am going to learn a  lot from this place, and I'm very excited to have new means to directly help others in my community from the comfort of my lounge room.