It was clear from Tim Mayer’s comments that Yahoo always intended its Answers product to have a revenue component. Now comes word from JenSense that people will be able to use their YPN ID to collect money for answering money. Looks like Yahoo allows other engines to crawl the resulting content, in the same way that Google allows other engines to crawl its Answers content. Kudos to Yahoo; I think that’s a smart move. So if you have a burning desire to answer questions about lemurs on Yahoo, hop to it! 🙂
Typo in original article “collect money for answering money”
Is there really a need for these tools? Surely there is an answer to every question on the internet these days, free of charge?
Jon, I think these tools are actually a good use for the web. I have used Yahoo! Answers for a question I had about merging some data in Excel. I had an answer in about 30 minutes. IMHO, it is a great service. I don’t know about the money part, but I guess it is a good way to attract more users. Dolla bills y’all
Yahoo is always good for a laugh. I clicked on the link Matt provided and the first result for lemurs was about the sexual orientation of an ice skater. Don’t even want to know how that relates to lemurs.
I’d never pay for Google Answers or Yahoo Answers. I’m a librarian and I know how to find all my own info. 🙂
I don’t see why anyone would pay when librarians are available 24/7 for free.
Thank you for that answer Julie.
You’ll be getting a check your $0.11 from Yahoo shortly.
Haha. 😉
Who’d work for such lousy pay?
I don’t understand why people would actually pay for these things. What are the search engines for?
I haven’t ever used these services, but there have been times when I’ve searched for something and not found an answer. If the question had been important enough I might have been willing to pay for it. I tend to use allexperts when I’m in a bind like that though. Not as good as they used to be, but I still get an answer sometimes.
People are lazy, that’s why! That and half the people aren’t educated on how to properly use a search engine, so they’d rather take the easy way out and pay someone to do it for them….
Where I work, you wouldn’t believe how many people DON’T know what a search engine is, let alone how to use one. I am speaking of our patrons for the most part. Our staff at least know what a search engine is, though alot of them don’t know how to use them properly.
Sorry…got off the subject a bit there……
The key thing with these services is that you’re not getting generic answers from god-knows-who like on a forum or many web pages, you’re getting the *right* answer.
Searching for the answer involves time you may or may not have, and if the cost if $0.11 to avoid an hour or two of trial-and-error search results then that’s $0.11 well spent as far as I’m concerned.
Only works in Ohio Julie?
Eh, that’s just ONE example. Most libraries have a similar service.
>I don’t see why anyone would pay when librarians are available 24/7 for free.
A real shame the site didn’t work when I entered my zip code. Maybe the page should have said that you MUST live in Ohio to use the service. Maybe the error message could have mentioned that. Maybe Yahoo! has an answer on how to fix that broken form / page / error message.
>Most libraries have a similar service.
But probably have fewer workers and a less diverse set of knowledge that they are willing to freely share…oh yeah, and some of them still have physical borders, and the KnowItNow page title does not even contain geotargeted keywords. The site doesn’t even rank for many relevant queries.
I guess I would rather just pay than know there was something free out there somewhere that was free but exceptionally hard to find.
Hey, I never said our tech people here know what they are doing when they design webpages! (Don’t get me started on that…)
Anyways, the Library of Congress has a service as well. http://www.loc.gov. If you’re out of the US, there are still many other similiar options. Just go to your local library website, state library website, or if you’re a student, your university site.
Hey, I’d gladly pay for the Answer why my site was penalized by Google. Sadly I don’t think even Yahoo Answers could help me there.
heheh http://answers.yahoo.com/question/;_ylt=AhP3t_FaIHl17mmO9tebjmwjzKIX?qid=1006012306431
Just as a point of clarification Yahoo Answers is an entirely free product. The YPN angle will be to revenue share with people that are providing valuable answers to the community. It will never cost money to ask a question at Yahoo Answers.