Y! Answers: On-demand MicroBlogging
Posted on August 1, 2006
Filed Under ugc, yahoo | Comments
Welcome Wall Street Journal readers! Lee Gomes wrote up a nice Q&A with me today about the new “bubble”. Lee was gracious enough to include mentions of my dog Rashi and this blog, elatable. Thanks Lee!
I’ve been thinking (and talking) about Yahoo! Answers a lot recently. A huge congrats to Yumio, Lesley, Bob B, Tom C, Ofer, Tomi, Eckart and the gang at Y! Answers for the tremendous growth that the product has enjoyed - truly remarkable. As a (very interested!) bystander I’m blown away and grateful for what you all have achieved.
I recently mentioned how traditional web search is generally retrospective or forensic, but Answers lets one search for knowledge which does not yet exist. Cool stuff, still blows my mind.
That model is really from the perspective of the asker, and speaks to the “pull” that invokes the knowledge. There’s another way to think about Answers from the perspective of the answerer… The “push” of knowledge from the answerers head into the world.
Blogging has been heralded as the poster child for “user-generated content” or “amateur publishing” or whatever buzzword you may prefer. And at a technical and procedural level this is certainly true. The process of becoming “a blogger” has never been easier.
The hard part (now that the barriers to entry have melted away) is having something worthwhile to say. That really hasn’t gotten any easier. Moreover as a newly minted “blogger” there’s an expectation that you’ll have a consistent, steady stream of interesting postings for your readers to enjoy. Nothing sadder than a dead blog or inactive blog.
But what of the more casual “blogger?” Someone who has only the occasional gem of wisdom to share? Someone who may not want to carry the baggage associated with owning and maintaining a blog per se?
Another way to think about Answers is that it’s a system by which would-be “bloggers” can pick off areas of expertise and easily “post” what they know. You can think of each answer as a micro blog post… But instead of shooting it into the ether(net) on your blog, leaning back and waiting for readers to visit (either by the compelling title of the post, the blogger’s reputation, etc.) Yahoo! Answers delivers a ready-made audience. In fact each “post” is in direct response to demand. Each question is a little appeal to the world that says “I’d be interested in knowing about…” and each answer is a little release of knowledge that may in another context been a more speculative blog post.
I’m obviously not suggesting that Yahoo! Answers replaces blogging, or that the two are ultimately equivalent. It’s just interesting and useful to recognize answering as publishing, and examine the somewhat fuzzy line between the two endeavors…
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6 Responses to “Y! Answers: On-demand MicroBlogging”
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We’ve tried to develop a community site with “Answers” to questions about airplanes and aviation, “Ask the SkyGuys”.
We also ask airplane operators to complete a preset operating cost statement for the particular make and model plane they fly. We have 270 operating costs statements for 270 makes and models. We review these submissions, then average them.
Finally, rather than a simple “circle the ad” effort, we’ve given the community of airplane sellers a wizard to complete a standardized equipment list, which can then be automatically compared “side by side” on a spreadsheet with a click of the mouse.
All this is free. Our revenue will be from google ads.
Does something like this fit with Yahoo “Answers”?
I think you’re absolutely right. Blogging as a platform is great for some people, but it certainly isn’t for everyone - or even for most people.
If you think back to your high school English class, what percentage of your class really enjoyed writing? Of those, how many were actually good at it?
Probably a small percentage.
My sense is that there is a much larger market of folks who don’t want to be a full time blogger, but who do have specific knowledge, opinions, thoughts that they’d like to inject into the conversation.
Designing an alternative blogging platform for these kinds of folks (like Yahoo! Answers) is a real opportunity.
Even better if that platform is able to interact somehow with bloggers and blog posts.
I read the Q&A by Lee in WSJ and thought i wud have a luk at the elatable.com. Voila - u’ve already posted a blog for readers like me. I’ve always wondered if ppl like u wud get a copy of what is gonna be published n need ur approval b4 it is actually published. and now i came to the r8 place to ask it. i cud have done it in Yahoo Answers. but i wanna first hand info and not from the genreal public. moreover i dont wanna lose 5points.
I initiallly thought u r a frequent blogger. but once i went thru ur archives i came to know that i was wrong. U r not bloggin so very often, still u get comments regularly. i tried posting a few blogs and told all my friends but i am not gettin enough views and i lost the motivation to continue. they call me n say the content is gud but none is willing to leave a comment on the blogsite. they r not helpin me to popularize my blog as well. can i have ur suggestions?
I like Yahoo! Answers but I think the time based loss of information is a limitation - similar to blogs filled with advice which should be lasting but is often lost when 4-5 new posts push it off the main page.
At Minti we are very focussed on the parenting vertical, allow data to be kept and rated by the community for an extended period and give blogging/social features in a single package. Maybe this is the way to bring blogging, social software, content creation and Q&A together - we certainly hope so
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