Google Answers Closing Up Shop 145
EricTheGreen writes "It isn't often that Google completely kills a product, which makes the announcement of the end of Google Answers noteworthy. I find it particularly interesting, given that there's clearly a market for this service. Yahoo!'s offering continues to flourish, it seems ... so what made Yahoo's service more attractive than Google's?" From the blog post: "Later this week, we will stop accepting new questions in Google Answers, the very first project we worked on here. The project started with a rough idea from Larry Page, and a small 4-person team turned it into reality in less than 4 months. For two new grads, it was a crash course in building a scalable product, responding to customer requests, and discovering what questions are on people's minds. Google Answers taught us exactly how many tyrannosaurs are in a gallon of gasoline, why flies survive a good microwaving, and why you really shouldn't drink water emitted by your air conditioner. Even closer to home, we learned one afternoon that our building might be on fire."
Because Google Answers weren't free (Score:5, Insightful)
Yahoo Answers [yahoo.com] are completed by random people who have enough time to sit around and answer what appears to me to be a lot of really stupid questions that people should have been able to figure the answers to by themselves.
Apparently people prefer a free answer of questionable accuracy to having to pay for an answer.
Re:Because Google Answers weren't free (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like Wikipedia to me.
Re:Google Slashdotted??!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, actually, they're owned by Google, they're pwned by Slashdot. --wix
Re:It failed... (Score:2, Insightful)
Casually typing "nigger" would have caused me to mod you down if I had mod points.
If any of the people on Slashdot are Black (like me) then putting that word out there definitely elicits a negative response.
It was inconsistent. You said "Russian", not "Commie". You said "gay", not "fag". Instead of saying "Black", you said "nigger".
But relax. You ultimately ended up getting modded funny above all else. And given the environment here, I wouldn't be surprised if I ultimately got modded down for being a "troll".
Re:It failed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Cliche='In soviet russia'.
2) You said "gay", not "fag".
Referencing the 'gay niggers from outerspace' troll.
3) Instead of saying "Black", you said "nigger".
Being that the name of the movie is Gay niggers from outerspace, I think that's rather understandable. How could anyone not recognise all of these on sight? I read slashdot about once a week, and 'I' got them.
Re:It failed... (Score:5, Insightful)
overuse and humor are probably the best way to drain the words of power.
continuing to act like they have power gives them power they don't deserve.
More to the point--- he was parroting text in common troll spam jokes here at Slashdot.
When I was a young naive programmer... I worked in a language with six letter variables.
I had a count field that i wanted to abbreviate. Two letters were reserved for the area (orders, invoices, etc.).
So I dropped the O and and orcunt, incunt, xxcunt. The senior programmer came by and just about had a cow and yet- couldn't explain what the problem was. He finally just said trust him and change it to cont so I did. there was no internet back then so it was a little difficult to find out what the problem was.
I get the impression that the parent poster really just sees nigger as any other mildly derogatory term (and to be fair- a ton of blacks use it daily without any problem- it's a like a special reserved word they can use playfully, insultingly, innocuously but is magically derogatory if anyone else uses).
As more whites and blacks, and mexicans and blacks, and asians and blacks date, marry, and interbreed, the term becomes hard to define anyway.
And personally, I prefer humor about anything (death, aids, my having cancer, me losing my hair, me being a geek) over getting all huffy and serious about it. Only through humor are we going to destroy the true racism by showing just how stupid it is to think you can know about a person because of their skin color.
Re:Got Answers and Nowhere to Share Them? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, the barrier to entry for Google Answers was way too high. You had to pay to ask, and you had to go through a small job interview to answer. Once I found that out, I never touched it again. It wasn't free, so it never developed a community around it. Google should have seen that coming a mile away.
It seems like the way to go would be a two-tiered system. People would be able to ask and answer questions, and eventually if they generate a high enough "trust metric" they would be allowed to answer for-pay questions. People could ask questions for free, or chip in a few bucks to motivate answers. People with insufficient credibility would be allowed to answer as well, but they'd get the "anonymous coward" treatment (e.g. answers not visible by default). Once the question is closed, the person has to select the best answer(s), and the money is divvied up.
Yahoo should learn from World of Warcraft: You can get people addicted to leveling up.
Of course, once you get money involved, people will start looking for ways to game the system.
Re:It failed... (Score:2, Insightful)
Niche information is NOT cheap, Google messed up (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, when I have a question which I don't know the answer, can't easily find the answer, and don't have the time to dig for the answer -- Google connects me to someone who does/can.
Most importantly, Google Answers was a way for me to buy expensive specialized niche information for cheap.
For example, I could purchase a Q4 2006 ODM report to tell me which ODM Dell is currently using to manufacture the XPS M2010. I could purchase additional reports to tell me how much was designed by the ODM, and how much (if any) by Dell. I could easily spend $5,000 on these reports. OR I could post a $200 bounty on Google Answers and likely get an answer -- continually raising it until I did.
I'm obviously in the computer hardware business. But most any business could find these services useful. Niche reports such as the one I mentioned are very, very expensive.
Google should never have abandoned Answers. With a 10% Google Fee and some marketing towards business men, Answers could have been profitable.
see: digitimes.com, stratfor.com, et al
Re:It failed... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are free to think what you like, and everyone else is free to think you are an asshole.