On another front, is it better to have Q&A all in once place or be embedded into blogs, web sites and/or other destinations where the discussion is more focused and therefore more valuable to the end users.

We continue to experiment to answer these questions, but am very happy to see so much press and interest in the general Q&A space.

Thansks Yahoo for investing in the area.

If big companies simply had to direct their existing audience to new properties to make them successful, then I guess startups like flickr, digg, and even google wouldn’t exist – with sites like AOL You’ve Got Pictures, MSNBC.com and Yahoo! crushing these fledgling companies because they were first and had the benefit of either a huge existing audience or were part of a parent that had deep pockets and multiple sources of traffic. Building a sustainable, community property like Y! Answers requires a committed team, a great product, great users, a receptive audience, and a value proposition that resonates. 60 million users clearly are seeing something you’re not.

I also find it funny that people pick on Answers as being lowbrow or pedantic or “stupid”. ”

The added “answers” to current yahoo index on top (and bottom) of organic and paid listings. They didn’t take anything down for that. They built the brand for virtually free and move the traffic to a site that generates zero dollars.
Great “measuarable opportunity cost.”

Another case of not being able to monetize content?

If you think this is true you are naive. Internal Media allocation at Yahoo is very closely measured and extremely competitive since there is a real and measurable opportunity cost. Granted its available to the properties slightly below market rates so Yahoo spends most of its promotional resources on its own properties.

I also find it funny that people pick on Answers as being lowbrow or pedantic or “stupid”.

“Answers” is the lamest of all Yahoo’s properties. I can’t believe it has survived a year. But I also can’t believe Jerry Springer is still on the air.

Yahoo’s admirable reach into the general public is so deep that Answers was instantly — and continues to be — overrun by people who appear simply unable or unwilling to do a bit of web searching to find information.

It’s full of crap like “What is the best multivitamin?” If you can’t find some existing resources that discuss a subject like that, you should put down your mouse and stick to the Yellow Pages.

I’m not exaggerating. Here are a few from the current list:

“L dont like my lats name to display when lm chatting with someone on line how can l remove my last name?”

“Does anyone know a simple pudding recipe? If so what is it?”

“The kid in the frank advert what would you do?”

“How do i start my own buisness?”

“I want to know everything about scorpion?”

“Who dances better?black people or white?”

Ugh. What a waste of bytes.

For the original thing (in Korean): http://kin.naver.com/
Launched in October 2002 (3 years before Yahoo Answers), and yes, they have improved on it since then…

Their concept along with wondir.com inspired my start up at http://www.askromance.com.

I wonder if there are any plans to generate additional revenue besides text links.

Good Success!

Vondre’

Competition is great!

Happy Birthday Yahoo Answers.

Thanks

Happy birthday anyway.