Google Cleans Answers from Closet of Forgotten Products
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | November 29, 2006 | Share This
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There’s nothing like postmortem popularity - Today, Google Answers announced its retirement, and consequently generated more press than it’s seen in its entire 4 year existence. Everyone has a “google answers helped me…” story, or some nostalgic reminiscence about their “delightful experience” with Google’s quirky researchers. In a farewell post, the Official Google Blog writes, “Google Answers taught us exactly how many tyrannosaurs are in a gallon of gasoline, why flies survive a good microwaving, and why you really shouldn’t drink water emitted by your air conditioner.” Ah, cherie, the knowledge we’ve lost.
Originally the brainchild of Larry Page, Google Answers grew from a “small 4-person team” into a task force of over 800 researchers. The idea was - People post questions for Google researchers, agreeing to pay a certain sum for a professional answer. Answers start at $2.50, and increase according to level of difficulty. Researchers pocket 75% of the profit, plus any tips for “good answers”, and Google gets the remaining 25%. Questions and Answers have open comments, so other users can rate the quality of the research and contribute their own knowledge.
Google Answers was always a bit of anomaly in the relation to other Google services. First of all, it requests that the user (gasp) pay for the service, rather than subsidizing costs with advertising revenue. This was the primary turn-off for most potential questioners. Furthermore, the pay-per-answer model had operational difficulties that often compromised the quality of the research. Ars Technica quotes a former Google Answers researcher:
“‘You’d have people grabbing high-dollar questions who might not have been the best person to answer them.’ She also pointed out that that some Google “researchers” were not doing research at all, but simply searching—you guessed it—Google for the answers. ‘At the end of the day, saying you’re doing research when you’re searching Google (which was the way Google Answers skewed) is silly. I don’t think the Google people may have thought much about how the money factor would change the dynamics.’”
Being a relatively old product, its no surprise that Google Answers continued to struggle with operational issues. It was more of a cute sidekick than it was an integral part of the Google advertising platform, which is probably the main reason that Google finally decided to nix it. As the Google Blog writes, “Google Answers was a great experiment which provided us with a lot of material for developing future products to serve our users. We’ll continue to look for new ways to improve the search experience and to connect people to the information they want.”
So, this may be yet another example of how Google excels at consolidating fringe assets to reap a greater benefit. After all, whether it’s in their business operations, on Wall Street or from their overwhelming market share - Google’s always been good at cleaning up.
Topics: Google |