Like similar services by Yahoo!, Askville.com is free for all internet users, and enables participants to earn points based on the quality of answers they provide. In addition, users will also earn a virtual currency called 'Quest Coins', which Amazon says will be redeemed for unspecified prizes on the yet to be activated, Questville.com.
Amazon also operates a separate search engine, called A9, but many of its widely touted features, including the ability to record search history and a service that showed detailed, street-level images of major cities, have been scrapped.
After Google's exit from the human-assisted Internet search niche, Amazon’s key competitors remain Microsoft and Yahoo!, along with several other speciality Web sites like Keen.com, Answers.com and Answerbag.com.
Read more here.
Information at the Askville site is limited. Does anyone have anymore background info or contacts with this new division?
