Evaluating Dunocom where you Earn Money to Answer Questions
Duno.com is a site registered in California, and apparently trying to emulate Wikipedia as an encyclopaedic site open for editing by anyone who cares to register. The difference is that whilst those who edit Wikipedia do so without earning from their efforts, duno.com states that large and small cash sums are paid occasionally (and apparently randomly) to its contributors. Logging on to the site for the first time today, I noted that they claim to have paid out $35 in the period 24th 30th July. Interestingly, $30 of this was paid to the same contributor. There is no recorded payment after that date, suggesting that the site has either ceased to function or has exhausted its capital.
I'm writing this article on 28th September, so I think I am on strong ground surmising that the site has not succeeded as its creator intended. The idea behind the site seems quite strong. It carries plenty of Google advertising, boasts the ability to make an income by writing and editing articles and maintains a simple, uncluttered interface. So why doesn't it work?
Duno.com appears to have been created by one Daniel Eder, who includes a contact e-mail address on duno.com which points to another domain, travolto.com, which is hosted by a large web-hosting company and which has no homepage, but seems to be used purely as an e-mailing address for the said Daniel Eder. The visitor to duno.com must find it strange to be invited to send queries to another site.
I attempted to register with duno.com, but was faced with a number of SQL error messages, suggesting that a database has been home made' and set to go live without checking for errors. This is a great shame. Taken in a slightly different direction, duno.com could provide a useful research site while making money for its owners and maybe a little for its contributors. It seems to have taken a wrong turning and has not yet been put back on track. I rather hope that may happen soon, though I doubt it.
It is interesting to look at duno.com as an exercise in what can go wrong when developing a big idea without sufficient forward planning. Take a look at the site yourself interesting that all the comments on the site are dated 31st January 1969! Do we have a return of the millennium bug here in a different guise?
It would seem to me that Duno.com got bigger than its creator imagined in a very short space of time, and that he was simply unable to keep up with it. A well-conceived idea badly planned. If you visit the site, click on some of the ads you may just generate enough revenue to help Daniel get going again. I'm guessing here, and have no vested interest whatsoever.
As an epilogue to this review I decided to send Daniel an e-mail before I published, asking for his side of the story of duno.com. The mail was returned undelivered with the message that the e-mail address was invalid.
Duno.com died in infancy 2008 RIP
