Yahoo! Answers
About a year ago, my friend Joe Weisenthal came up with an idea that he was sure would revolutionize the internet. It would be a web site for questions.
It would be better than a usenet group, because the questions would go to anyone who was tagged as having an interest in those issues, which would eventually be thousands.
For instance, say you live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. One of your interests could be Greenpoint, Brooklyn, so you would get emailed questions like, “What’s with the police tape around The Busy Bee at Nassau?” Anyone who knew the answer would respond, or could forward the question to someone they thought would know the answer.
A few months ago, Joe was talking about this idea again, and I suggested that we go to New Jersey to meet with my friend Peter Bleickardt, the software programming genius who designed The World Star Gazette for us, which had a back-end that was so brilliantly designed, Joe and I could update the site ourselves. I told Peter Joe’s answers idea, and he liked it, but said we’d need tons of PR to make sure it “won’t resemble a ghost town.”
The day before we were to meet with Peter, however, a big snowstorm was forecasted, and Joe got stuck with another appointment. “Furthermore…,” Joe said, and showed me this link.
Yahoo! Answers had just debuted. It was basically Joe’s idea, except entirely Web based and with a big internet name attached. There’s no way we could have competed.
They even have an incentive system, where you get points for answering questions, and get more points when your answers are selected as the best answers. You can browse questions, which is one of the best internet time killers I’ve ever seen. Most of the questions are about how to know when to kiss a girl, but there are serious ones too. Like what the key to happiness is.
I’ve asked four questions so far:
“Are there existing copies of the boardgame ‘The Game of Christian Endeavor’ (1896)?”
“My once agnostic girlfriend is becoming Methodist. I’m agnostic, and don’t know much about Methodists. Should I worry?”
“Can I adopt my friend in order to give him Welsh citizenship?”
and
I got no answers on the first question, probably because there are no existing copies of the boardgame “The Game of Christian Endeavor.”
On the second question, I got four responses. One was a direct quote from the Wikipedia entry on Methodism, which wasn’t even a good entry anway. Two described growing up with Methodists and Baptists and thinking Methodists were better. Another one told me that if my girlfriend was doing this, I should support her decision.
On the third question, I got one loser suggesting that I didn’t actually have a British passport because I didn’t realize that you couldn’t have Welsh citizenship, only UK citizenship (which includes Wales, England, Scotland, and North Ireland). I knew that, jerk. If you want to see my British passport, go to my mom’s house in Dallas (where it’s safely stashed away) and weep! Another person simply told me that adoption only works with minors. Both respondants, of course, assumed I was secretly gay (“Ah, yes, adopting your… ‘friend’”).
The fourth question, however, sold me on Yahoo Answers. In less than 15 minutes, someone gave me a link that told me how to delete the virus! Amazing. Hooray Yahoo Answers!
But the real shout-out goes to Joseph Weisenthal, who came up with the same idea independently, and probably earlier.
6 years ago