Learning from StackOverflow.com

July 26th, 2009 | by admin |

Google Tech Talk
April 24, 2009

ABSTRACT

Presented by Joel Spolsky

Until recently, searching for help on highly technical programming problems has been a mess. A lot of what the search engines found was old discussions in forums, where you have a lot of wrong answers and out-of-date answers that you have to sift through yourself. You also found a lot of answers at sites that were hidden behind a pay wall, which uncloaked themselves for Google and then demanded membership fees to see the answers.

StackOverflow.com is a programmer’s Q&A site that launched last September to address these problems. It incorporates more modern ideas about community such as voting and public editing, and even a few ideas from game design, to create a much more successful way to get help with programming problems. In a few short months, it has grown to 14 million page views a month and reaches 3 million unique programmers every month. The lessons we’ve learned in creating a successful Q&A site has many implications for search which I’ll share in this talk.

Duration : 0:51:58


[youtube NWHfY_lvKIQ]

  1. 25 Responses to “Learning from StackOverflow.com”

  2. By ChristopherDone on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    I always scroll …
    I always scroll down to see the answers… I find it pretty useful. But I’m glad StackOverflow will (probably) usurp it.

  3. By ChristopherDone on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    I believe when …
    I believe when people make a noise it shows that video stream. Perhaps for some conversational type of talks?

  4. By maximz2005 on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    Experts Exchange - …
    Experts Exchange - it sucks!

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  11. By matthewdoucette on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    i love how joel …
    i love how joel spolsky understands human interactions on computers… UI.

  12. By utuber2 on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    Every time I ask a …
    Every time I ask a question, it gets deleted for not being programming related. If I’d found the answer on Google, I wouldn’t be asking, numbnuts! :-)

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  16. By ehsanul on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    That’s true once in …
    That’s true once in a while, but to a large extent, I’d agree with him. Yahoo answers isn’t all that great.

  17. By Kn0wnIssues on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    It’s funny that the …
    It’s funny that the speaker claims that technologies like Yahoo Answers is failing. There’s been countless times I’ve done a search on Google of a question nature and gotten a Yahoo Answer as a result.

  18. By fl1ckmasterflex on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    Its just his …
    Its just his opinion. Do you publish a paper with citations every time you recommend restaurants that you think serve the best food?

  19. By GrantNeufeld on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    I really like the …
    I really like the point of recognizing that the Google search pages are really the front page for the site, and how they optimize for that (proper meta tags, meaningful permalinks, etc.).

  20. By bryantfilms on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    kudos to …
    kudos to googletechtalks for their great series, and Joel, who really fills this entire talk to the brim with concentrated details about the anthropology and design of a question and answer site. No time is wasted. I have been amazed by the immediate success of stackoverflow — after following the pre-launch blog I stopped watching it but then rediscovered it in google search results shortly after it launched.

  21. By jfontecha on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    yeah? and? so? you …
    yeah? and? so? you see anybody else building somethiing like stackoverflow and being successful at it?

  22. By creamboat on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    His claims that the …
    His claims that the Microsoft stack is somehow more efficient and cost friendly is never supported with actual data. It just reads as a blatant advertisement for a company he used to work for.

  23. By luger111 on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    Joel is the best!!
    …
    Joel is the best!!
    We all have what to learn from this guy

  24. By Borbuster on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    The secret is to …
    The secret is to use Google cache, or make your browser identify itself as the google spider.

  25. By lispified on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    hi, you’re retarded.
    hi, you’re retarded.

  26. By markyrandall on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply

    Well - he doesn’t …
    Well - he doesn’t mention that (as he says he wants them to burn in ) - but it is besides the point - SO puts the emphasis on providing content rather than tricking you into signing up…

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