FAQQLY - Social Networking Through FAQ’s

20 year old David Liu is the creator of new social networking site, FAQQLY.com. I recently had the chance to ask him a few questions about Faqqly’s unique take on social networking. Questions and answers are below.

How old is the site? How did you get your idea?

“A few years ago, I used to design websites for Hollywood actors. I kept noticing that they all had their own FAQ pages. After noticing all their FAQ pages, I thought to myself, “hey, I want my own FAQ page also.” And later on I thought, “Why can’t everyone have an FAQ?”

I also felt that most online communities and blogs are a little too individualistic. You get online and you start talking about yourself. I wanted to build a website where everything is done together. So even the process of authoring your personal profile becomes a collaborative process. I ask you about you. You ask me about me. We answer one another, and our personal profile is created. In short, I wanted FAQQLY to be an online community that modeled itself after real life community. In real life, you get to know people through a natural process of questions and answers. This is our personal FAQ.”

Can you tell me a little about your site stats, member count, and growth rate?ÂÂ

“We get close to 5,000 unique visitors per month.

Current member count is 2,470.

At our peak we were growing at 150 new members per day. This was when we were only in the hundreds. So that was a pretty high growth rate. Since then we’ve lessened our word of mouth efforts… actually, we are doing no marketing yet… until we are finished with several additional core features. Then we plan to really push the website out there.

In fact, the two or so articles written about us were really just word-of-mouth accidents. A friend that we had was friends with some people at CNET, the word got passed about FAQQLY, and boom… we had an article.

The MTV News article that just came out (check our blog for the link) was even more so an accident. One of our interns had a FAQQLY mug on her desk. Her roommate was a recent hire at MTV News as a staff writer. She saw the mug, asked about it, and then wrote a story that included us.

Despite our early press pieces, we’re actually trying to keep quiet about the site. We’re an open beta website right now, which enables to get a lot of good feedback, catch bugs, and refine the user experience.

Again, the serious marketing push will probably come at the end of summer when everyone gets back into school.”

What features of Faqqly make it unique over other SN sites?

“FAQQLY is less about “me” and more about “we”

I actually got that me-we thing from a user’s feedback.

But it’s true. The way we do our online profiles actually helps people learn more about one another. When I was on myspace or other online communities, most of my attention was directed at fine tuning my own profile. While that happens on FAQQLY also, we put more fun into reading what your friends or others write because you or others were the ones who asked to know!

Another reason we’re different is because we’re actually modeled after real life community. What do we do in normal, everyday community? We get to know one another, help one another, share with one another, etc. These are all features that we’ve built or are building into FAQQLY.”

What are your goals for FAQQLY?

“”To build authentic community online.” That’s our mission statement, tentatively at least. We want our features to actually help bring people closer together. We think it will happen.

For instance, with the Helps feature, I can ask someone for a ride to a job interview. If someone replies and says, “hey I can give you a ride”… the two people still need to meet up in person.

Or with our upcoming Shares feature, if I ask to borrow my friend’s Shrek 2 DVD, and she says yes, we still need to meet up in person to make the hand off.

And when people meet up in person, we think it really builds authentic community. Our best memories are, ideally, made in person and away from the computer. FAQQLY’s mission is to be a springboard for communities to easily organize online to get together offline. It seems counterintuitive, as most websites’ goal is to keep people stuck to their computers. But we think this will keep people returning.

An acquaintance of mine actually used Helps a couple weeks ago to get a ride to a job interview. She and her friend probably got to enjoy conversation. This is authentic community happening off of FAQQLY, and this is helping people help people..

Our website is built on good values. Learning about one another, helping, sharing… we make these interactive and fun for our users.”

What type of new features do you have in the works?

” It allows you to post your collection of books, DVDs, CDs, and other items you tangibly own. Items that you are willing to share with your friends.

So think of a group of friends piling all their goods into a giant pile, and sharing with one another. This is what we are thinking with our upcoming Shares feature.

And similarly, it is something we do in everyday community… share with one another. We make it much easier for people to do this.

FAQQLY helps people build social capital with favors being asked for and received left and right, items being borrowed and lent out, etc.

This Shares feature should be up in 1-2 months.”

Thanks to Dave for his time!

[tags]Social Networking, Social Network, FAQQLY, FAQ, Brian Balfour[/tags]