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Google Answers Closing Up Shop

EricTheGreen writes "It isn't often that Google completely kills a product, which makes the announcement of the end of Google Answers noteworthy. I find it particularly interesting, given that there's clearly a market for this service. Yahoo!'s offering continues to flourish, it seems ... so what made Yahoo's service more attractive than Google's?" From the blog post: "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 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. Even closer to home, we learned one afternoon that our building might be on fire."

2 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Because Google Answers weren't free by DuranDuran · · Score: -1, Redundant

    > Apparently people prefer a free answer of questionable accuracy to having to pay for an answer.

    Hello Wikipedia!

    --
    "You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
  2. Re:Because Google Answers weren't free by jbourj · · Score: -1, Redundant
    Apparently people prefer a free answer of questionable accuracy to having to pay for an answer.

    Can anyone say, Wikipedia?