[WEB4LIB] Google Answers questions

[Sloan, Bernie]

I am really curious to see if Google can actually offer this service over
the long haul. There have been many for-fee Q&A services that have debuted
to big publicity and then faded into the woodwork. WebHelp.com is a good
example. WebHelp started out as a free service, with a lot of publicity, and
a lot of activity. When they switched to for-fee, they more or less faded
away in short order.

If anyone can make a go of this, Google can. But if Google can't, you have
to figure for-fee Q&A services are a niche market at best.

Bernie Sloan

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Wiggins [mailto:rich at richardwiggins.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 2:12 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Google Answers questions

Today I tried out Google Answers, their new for-fee human mediated reference
service.  I asked about relative safety of taking a helicopter tour of the
Grand Canyon.  I offered $20 for the answer.  The question, and answer,
appear here:

https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=17078

The answer I got was extremely well crafted and right on target with cited
authorities.  Foolow-up comments included more citations and personal
experiences.

When Gary Price posted news of this service, he speculated about
interactions with other virtual reference services.  What if a paid Google
Answerer does arbitrage with free or for-fee library-based virtual reference
services?

Here's another question: what if good reference folks sign up in large
numbers to be Google Answerers?  The Google service gives instant payback in
the form of cash for good service.  A reference librarian on salary would
not enjoy the same incentives, and often has many queries to contend with at
once.

It would be interesting to anonymously feed the exact question I asked to a
variety of reference desks and see if I get the same quality answer.   

It'd also be interesting to take a bunch of asked-and-answered questions
from virtual reference desks and feed them to the Google service at a
variety of price points.

In any event, I dunno folks, but I think Google is onto something.

Oh, and I did find a pretty satisfying answer as about the 3rd hit just by
searching Google myself -- first try.  :-)

/rich

Richard Wiggins
Writing, Speaking, and Consulting on Internet Topics
rich at richardwiggins.com       www.richardwiggins.com