Yahoo Launches Yahoo Answers

In December, Yahoo announced a beta of a new services, Yahoo! Answers. Yahoo! Answers was described as a service that "complements Web Search by adding a human element that allows users to ask straightforward questions and receive specific answers based on the collective knowledge and experience of the community." Um, okay. Try it at http://answers.yahoo.com. Unlike Google Answers there doesn't seem to be money involved; just a community of people willing to answer (and ask) questions.

From the front page you can ask questions, answer questions, and browse questions. Of course, to ask or answer questions you're gonna have to have a Yahoo account and you're going to have to be logged in. However you do not have to be logged in to browse answered questions and search questions.

You can search questions by keyword (an advanced search allows you to search for open or resolved questions, as well as questions by date, keywords by location, and how the question/answer was evaluated.) You can also browse questions by category.

I decided to go look for questions about animals. I drilled down the category listing to Science & Math / Zoology. Yahoo Answers divides the questions into unanswered (the most recently-asked questions are listed first) and answered.

Some of the questions are open-ended ("If you could be any animal dead or living what would you be?") some of them are more specific ("how do you get to the site for cincinnati zoo?") and some of them look like homework ("what are some interesting facts about blue sharks?") There were all kinds of questions. The answers were all over the map too; some were serious, some silly, some thoughtful, some brief. Answers can also have comments.

I like the idea of making a forum like this open, without requiring payment, but unfortunately it does change the signal-noise ratio for the worse. You can find a lot of good information in here, but you do have to browse around a lot of silliness. I found another good use for this site as well -- seeing the phrases people use to ask questions, the phrases they use to answer questions and describe things, and commonly-misspelled words.

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