Company invites customers to create product

Denis Grosz, owner of the the Web site wiseGEEK.com, pulls the strings of a world wide network of over 100 contractors writers, editors, programmers from his location in Sparks. And as his company prepares to serve up product number 10,000, he's decided to invite his customers to create product.

That product is answers. Because the Web site wiseGEEK fields questions. Each question posted prompts a short, researched article.

With over 2 million visitors per month, wiseGEEK is a source of information in categories such as home and garden, manufacturing and industry, technology and gadgets.

And to celebrate upcoming answer 10,000, wiseGEEK launched a question-and-answer writing contest with $10,000 in cash prizes. Those entrants that don't get a prize will still have the opportunity to share their knowledge with millions of other people, says Grosz.

Grosz first fielded the site through Conjec-tures Corp in 2003, intending to catalog the answers to various questions. In the beginning, he was the sole writer and researcher.

The most common question, says Grosz, is: 'How to write a resume?' But also remarkably popular: 'What is a humane way to euthanize a fish?'

"You wouldn't believe how many heartfelt thank you's I get from readers of that question," he says.

Those 100 wise ones researching answers get paid from revenue generated by click-through ads, says Lindey Lichell, content manager, a former teacher based in San Diego.

Conjectures contracts with Google AdSense, which employs an algorithm to look at content and select appropriate ads.

"It's amazing that you can support a company of this size on five cent click-throughs," she says.

Grosz, involved with the Internet since its mid-90s public debut, started developing sites while based in Silicon Valley. He launched industryspecific sites like projects.com and uniquetextures.com.

Inspiration comes from holes he finds in the Web.

For instance, he says, I wanted to hire an accountant and discovered that calling around was a laborious process." He's now working on a site where people can post their experiences in purchasing a service.

"It's born out of need," he says. "The first place I go when I need something is the Internet. If I don't find a good solution, I wonder if I could build that Web site."