Google announced that it is shutting down its Answers service. Yahoo Answers, on the other hand seems to get more popular by the day. The chart below from hitwise says it all.
Yahoo Answers relies on the community to provide answers (like Wikipedia), whereas Google had researchers answer them. Look at which one was more popular: the wisdom of the crowds. This seems counter intuitive - getting an answer from an expert at a subject should be more valuable. The bazaar style prevails again.
Yahoo Answers relies on the community to provide answers (like Wikipedia), whereas Google had researchers answer them. Look at which one was more popular: the wisdom of the crowds. This seems counter intuitive - getting an answer from an expert at a subject should be more valuable. The bazaar style prevails again.
3 comments:
I would'nt be so surprised looking at those numbers. We sometimes underestimate the power of social design..people in large numbers make up huge chunks of intellectual output. Although the mean population's understanding of special topics maybe somewhat poor, even small percentages of the internet users who have answers could be invaluable. Also there are so many companies recently who have been capitalizing on the social design wave(flickr, buzzfeed, digg, citeulike) who in addition to their primary business have been built on public opinion.
What you say is true. (I wish you'd left your name, though.) Social design has proven itself in the cases that you have mentioned. I think it is the collective wisdom of large numbers at work here, plus some very smart under-the-hood moderating by Yahoo. If you have used the service, you'll know what I mean. E.g., you need to get to a certain level before you can rate answers. So it isn't really as free for all as it may seem.
Lets say yahoo results are 30% accurate than google.Even though # of people who digs out in Google doesn't come down. That's the brand power.Can say they keyword *search* itself has been replaced with googling.
Now does anyone really go & compare results ?
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