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Comment by GraffitiTim | Hacker News Reader

Yes, AnyAsq is a YC company. We hadn't asked Harj to do an AMA though. :) And we hadn't really intended to launch quite yet but we're not complaining.

Ways we hope AnyAsq beats reddit ama:

-The concept should make more sense to people as a standalone site than as a sub-section on another site. (Easier to explain, easier to link to, etc)

-As a standalone site we can optimize the interface for this concept, which is really a very different idea than reddit.com.

-Twitter integration is really helpful. Acts as both moderation and as a way for people to spread AnyAsq to their followers when they do an AMA or ask a question.

-We're a YC company which will hopefully help us get people like Harj (or pg? Don't do it quite yet though please) on there and maybe help with press.

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Feature request: don't force me to sign in with twitter. I understand having the option and even encouraging it, but I don't actually like twitter and don't want to use it as my identity/login. I don't want to use Facebook for that either, though I'm sure it would be wise to offer that as an option.

Please support OpenID and good old non-social username/password logins.

The concept should make more sense to people as a standalone site than as a sub-section on another site. (Easier to explain, easier to link to, etc)

Should isn't very strong. I don't think the 15 seconds it takes to get used to an /r/IAMA thread is worth a whole new product.

As a standalone site we can optimize the interface for this concept, which is really a very different idea than reddit.com

That's true.

Twitter integration is really helpful. Acts as both moderation and as a way for people to spread AnyAsq to their followers when they do an AMA or ask a question.

Twitter has a text box where i can tweet anything i like. Your twitter integration makes it harder to sign up and adds almost no benefit. That's a negative, imho.

We're a YC company which will hopefully help us get people like Harj (or pg? Don't do it quite yet though please) on there and maybe help with press.

So is reddit, and reddit doesn't need any help with press, given it's 15 something million users.

You're taking something that works and breaking it.

"I don't think the 15 seconds it takes to get used to an /r/IAMA thread is worth a whole new product."

I don't know what to think about this product, but I have to disagree with you on this point. It might take 15 seconds to explain Reddit AMAs to techies, but if the aim is to make AMAs more popular with non-techies, I can definitely see that there might be an advantage.

Interesting. A couple of points:

> The concept should make more sense to people as a standalone site than as a sub-section on another site. (Easier to explain, easier to link to, etc)

> As a standalone site we can optimize the interface for this concept, which is really a very different idea than reddit.com.

reddit already has the capability of allowing the moderators do a different domain with a different interface -- the mods just have to decide to do it, so be careful here.

Otherwise, you make some interesting points. I'm curious though, what is your advantage over Quora, which is also a clone of Iama, designed to be a standalone Q&A site?

Neat! Good answers.

How do you make money though? Who is paying for what?

I think you underestimate the value of a giant community interested in reading about stuff in general. They are the consumers of knowledge and content and are there to consume pictures, videos, AMAs, etc. While I don't always want to read AMAs, the most popular do make it through to my front page or I can see what's going on when I feel the urge, without ever changing sites. That value proposition alone is why I don't think I'd regularly use a dedicated AMA site.

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