Koonji is a social website that allows anyone to create an interactive guide on any subject. For example, you could learn how to sell your house or how to toilet train your cat. Koonji brings to mind a number of comparisons. Like About.com it provides people-powered guides to specific topics, like Squidoo each guide contains links to relevant websites and products, and like Instructables the Koonji guides follow a step-by-step format.
I would say that Koonji’s approach is probably most like Instructables in that in encourages discussion, though for creators of guides on the site it probably will feel more like Squidoo.
Each Koonji step contains three elements: the description of that step, recommended links, and tips. Anyone can add links or tips to a Koonji guide once it has been published, oddly however, users can’t add or edit steps of the guide itself. The ability to edit and moderate the guide is left to the guide’s creator. Anyone can discuss each Koonji guide in a dedicated forum and presumably give advice and pointers to the guide’s creator.
Koonji also offers a toolbar (for Firefox and IE) which allows you to “clip” text directly from a web site and associate it with a Koonji. Unfortunately I was unable to get it to work properly in Firefox 2.0.0.6 (the toolbar would tell me my clippings were saved but they wouldn’t actually appear on the site under my profile.
The site appears to make money in two ways: contextual Google Adsense text ads on the Koonji guide pages themselves — which given the targeted nature of the specific instructions target very well. And via a “recommended products” side bar that operates in affiliation with Nextag. Like the links and tips, anyone can recommend products to be associated with a Koonji.
Conclusion
I’m not really sure I see the appeal of Koonji for content creators. The site talks about the possibility of revenue sharing down the road — and appears to have plenty of opportunities for that (users could make money via Adsense on the Koonjis they create, and make money off other people’s Koonjis by recommending products). But until that happens, I’m not sure if the “feeling good about helping others and being recognized as an expert” that they talk about in their FAQ will be enough to make the site compelling to a wide range of content creators. And as far as instructional platforms go, I tend to think Instructables is probably better. With revenue sharing, however, I think Koonji would be a lot more attractive.
Besides revenue sharing, building out the site’s rudimentary social networking features (right now just friends, messages, and the ability to mark guides as favorites) would be a good idea. Building a community around sharing step-by-step information and related links would be a good way for people network and find people with similar interests — which would be another benefit for users of the site.
