(3)
Google announced that Google Answers is closing up shop by years end. The old questions and answers will still be available, but they will not be accepting any new questions or answers after December 31st.
Later this week, we will stop accepting new questions in Google Answers, the very first project we worked on here. The project started with a rough idea from Larry Page, and a small 4-person team turned it into reality in less than 4 months. For two new grads, it was a crash course in building a scalable product, responding to customer requests, and discovering what questions are on people's minds.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.
Danny has a nice write up on it over here.
A WebmasterWorld thread has some comments, including this one that I liked;
Bummer. I've been a Google Answers Researcher since 2002. It was fun for a while, but my life just got too busy to spend hours researching and writing the answer to a question for $1.50.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Barry Schwartz
11/29/2006 04:29 pm
Check out Gary Prices post on this if you want more info on these types of services and some history. More details at http://www.resourceshelf.com/2006/11/29/google-saying-goodbye-to-google-answers/
J Evans
11/30/2006 02:38 am
In response to Google's announcement that they are shutting down the Google Answers service, researchers have banded together to petition Google to keep GA alive. Please sign. http://www.petitiononline.com/ganswers/ Keep Google Answers Alive To: Google The Google Answers service has helped many people during its four and a half years of existence, and it continues to do so. Researchers and unpaid commenters formed a community which should not be discarded lightly. Many repeat users were able to easily find answers to difficult questions thanks to the service. Furthermore, Google Answers proved that a living could be made working on the Internet alone, as many researchers worked on the site as their sole source of income. We, the undersigned, believe that Google should continue to provide this valuable community service to the Internet. Sincerely, The Undersigned
No Name
11/30/2006 09:46 am
Google answers simply got killed by yahoo answers This what majority of the people think and the rest is all to confuse people.I personally think that Google does not invest in things that a not profitable.