Qondio, launched as Qassia in early 2008, has undergone another overhaul. It was rolled out on July 20, 2011, and an announcement went on August 2, 2011. In this in-depth post we will cover what Qondio is about, its history, and the significance of the latest release, which is more than merely cosmetic. Indeed, the 300 update marks a substantial metamorphosis, a shift from stand-alone tool to social network with built-in tools.
Overview
Qondio was originally developed as a site which rewarded information with backlinks. At the time the primary competitor was Google's Knol and Wikipedia. Wikipedia required - and still does require - users to provide information without providing any credit or acknowledgement in return.
The difference at Qondio was that providers of intelligence - intel - would be rewarded with exposure for their websites. The concept was a hit and the site grew explosively in early 2008.
However, with extreme growth came extreme problems. These included system administration issues - technical challenges for coping with the growth, but the severer issue was in the form of abuse by users.
This is unfortunate since Qondio was already geared to reward users, so there was no need to game it further. However, it seems to be human nature to seek exploits and shortcuts, and a number of users were not just flooding Qondio with PLR (Private Label Rights) articles but also publishing eBook guides on how to flood Qondio with PLR.
Redevelopment
Throughout 2009, strict rules were introduced to curb the abuse and weed out low quality material, and the site recovered to a degree. In early 2010, after experiencing some stagnation, the site was sold to an investor, who in late 2010 embarked on an ambitious overhaul.
The key strategy was to leverage the 30,000+ strong community and develop a community of common interest.
Redevelopment work went on throughout early 2011. It so happens that during this time the web was rocked by Google's Panda series of updates. Named after Navneet Panda, an engineer at Google who contributed to the deployment of machine-learning, Panda affected content farms, many of which were competitors of Qondio.
Although it was far less affected than sites such as HubPages, thanks to strict quality controls introduced in 2009, Qondio did lose some traffic, and measures to improve quality further were incorporated into the overhaul.
Redesign of the Qondio Interface
The original design, rolled out in January, 2008, was a 'liquid' design which took up the entire space of the screen. When the domain name was changed to qondio.com from qassia.com in 2009, the color scheme was changed from cinnamon to olive, but the basic design stayed the same.
In July of 2011, Qondio was released with a completely fresh design. It now has a more modern look, with a set of professionally developed icons matching the blue/tangerine color scheme, and tabs to make navigation easier.
Crucially, the design is now fixed-width, with two columns of space 600 pixels and 300 pixels wide, respectively. This provides the flexibility (ironically) to incorporate widgets and image-based ads more easily. The look is also more professional and corporate.
New Features
Some critical features were introduced in Qondio 3.0. The first one is Shares. Qondio members can now share updates (like tweets on Twitter) and links (like on Digg). Shares can be re-shared (like on Tumblr).
Qondio is certainly not the first site to introduce a sharing function, but the difference is that Qondio members get credit in the form of a signature with a link to their site.
Additionally, the list of Top Shares has been designed to allow old shares to rise to the top if new interest is there, while fresh shares can thrive as well. This is not something that would be possible on Digg, which cuts off interest after 24 hours - if a link doesn't make it to the front page within 24 hours of being submitted on Digg, it never will.
Signatures and IntelMart
One other interesting thing is that the signature you can use for sharing isn't limited to just one, as is the case for most forums. Members can add up to 500 signatures, allowing them to select signature according to content, and to continually introduce new signatures for new projects without retiring old ones.
IntelMart is also exciting. This allows users to trade unique, unpublished content, for backlinks from third-party site.
If you have a site which needs content, get it from IntelMart for free - you'd just have to add the author's bio with a backlink to his/her site. From the author's perspective, it's now possible to get backlinks from any site in exchange for original, well-written content.
Other Changes
All the changes incorporated in the new Qondio version would be too many to document here. Qondio released a new Features Compendium, to replace the old disorganized manual, and an update summary, so please refer to those for details.
Some of the more major minor changes are a shift to subdomains for intel, and the suspension of Groups.
Another interesting thing is the use of 'appreciations' as a ranking criterion for commentators - those commentators who are 'appreciated' most now appear on the front page. This rewards commentators without running the risk of encouraging spam.
Summary
The new Qondio is a brash, ambitious attempt to become the go-to social network for website owners, webmasters, Internet Marketers, bloggers and others earning a living on the web (referred to as "netrepreneurs" by Qondio).
It doesn't try to reward members with cash, which is an impractical, unrealistic approach, proven to be impossible by failed attempts such as Yuwie. Instead, it rewards them with exposure for their web properties, which is the one thing they need most and which a large and prominent network like Qondio can easily provide.
Social networks which do not allow users to advertise their websites easily are thriving, so there is no reason the new Qondio - which gives users concrete value in return for their activity - shouldn't be an enormous success.
The key for the Qondio management will be to keep Qondio spam-free and keep tweaking the features to ensure they keep users engaged and provide a sufficiently smooth UI experience.
