Google Answers to be shut down
By Vivek | November 29th, 2006 at 02:23 am ET
Google today announced that they are planning to shutdown their 4+ year old service Google Answers soon. Sometime later this week users will not longer be able to ask question from the Google Answers researchers. Also researchers will not be able to answer existing questions by the end of the year.
Any question asked by a user at Google Answers used to cost $2.50. Obviously the financial motivation, price per question, and quality of answer would never be able provide a sustainable ecosystem. Variable pricing model of Amazon Mechanical Turk or free answers from Yahoo Answers seem to be a better solution, although we are still not sure about the success status of Amazon service.
From Google’s perspective, shutdown of Answers will save few of it’s smart engineers from maintaining an application that did not scale well in terms of revenues.
Links:
Google Answers
on November 29th, 2006 at 6:45 am
Did you know only 800 people answered questions on Google Answers? I have written about it and the implications at my MediaVidea blog.
on November 29th, 2006 at 10:57 am
http://www.petitiononline.com/ganswers/
Keep Google Answers Alive
To: Google
The Google Answers service has helped many people during its four and a half years of existence, and it continues to do so. Researchers and unpaid commenters formed a community which should not be discarded lightly. Many repeat users were able to easily find answers to difficult questions thanks to the service. Furthermore, Google Answers proved that a living could be made working on the Internet alone, as many researchers worked on the site as their sole source of income.
We, the undersigned, believe that Google should continue to provide this valuable community service to the Internet.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
on November 29th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
“Obviously the financial motivation, price per question, and quality of answer would never be able provide a sustainable ecosystem.”
Actually, I think that paying for answers is the wrong model. Money is actually a poor motivator. Look at how much commitment and quality there is in Yahoo Answers, or Ask Metafilter. Two dollars is really sort of an insult, but recognition in public is free and valuable.