“What are New Features in Yahoo! Answers?”
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Written By Reprise Media | February 23, 2006 | Share This
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We’ll tell you: a handful of tweaks to the 60-day old beta site that were announced yesterday on the Yahoo! Search Blog. Unlike Yahoo!’s regular search engine, Yahoo! Answers is one of several sites that let curious web surfers with specific questions pick the brains of real people; in their words, “to tap into the collective wisdom of a world of web users” (more on that wisdom in a moment). The recent improvements aim to make the process quicker and easier.
For instance, users can now subscribe to RSS feeds for particular Q&A search keywords. They can also employ “an Ajax widget that searches previously asked questions as you’re typing,” allowing users to see if their questions have already been asked (and find out what the answers were).
Yahoo! also built a “badge” to deputize know-it-alls into their Answers posse - frequent contributors can use it to link to their Answers page from their blogs or websites. And since “people started using Answers to ask questions about Answers,” Yahoo added a Products page where folks can get info about Yahoo! Answers, Mail, 360 and Messenger. Search Engine Journal also noticed that Yahoo! Answers is showing up in Yahoo! local searches, “an excellent lead in to the implications of Yahoo Local Answers and advertising potential.”
This stuff is all kind of neat, but it doesn’t answer one question: how well does Yahoo! Answers work? News.com’s Elinor Mills put six answers sites to the test last week, including Yahoo!’s. Posing questions ranging from the medical (”Is marijuana addictive?”) to the matrimonial (”What should I do if I find that I am underdressed or inappropriately attired at a wedding?”), Mills found that Yahoo! Answers were a mixed bag, as users meted out “humorous quips, common sense tips and motherly advice.” She says:
“…The answers from free Web sites [such as Yahoo!’s] were long on opinion and humor but short on facts. They tended to be good for gauging public opinion but not very helpful in finding explanations for difficult questions.
Yahoo users were the most prolific.”
Well, they’ve got strength in numbers going for them, anyway, providing for breadth of knowledge if not depth. For questions about the metaphysical (”When does life begin?”), Yahoo! Answers didn’t skimp on armchair philosophy:
“Life begins when we realize the purpose behind our existence… Existence + Wisdom = Life,” said one. Hmm…maybe it’s better to stick to questions that are a little less heavy.
Topics: Search: News |