Yahoo! Answers Review

http://answers.yahoo.com

Overall 3.33 of 5 view all 6 reviews

ntwrkguru
Norristown, PA

Yahoo! Answers is very addictive!

expert web searcher, daily computer user, a researcher, into the web, a gadget geek, a techie, always online

Pros

Informative, Entertaining, Ability to contribute personal knowledge, Intuituve interface, Reputable company

Cons

Not a great reference, MANY duplicate questions

AUG

2008

Yahoo! Answers —

I normally would only review tangible goods, but I find Yahoo! Answers so entertaining and addictive that I had to review it. :-)

For those that may not know, Yahoo! Answers is one part of Yahoo's push into the Web2.0 arena and offers a place where any Yahoo user can ask any question. In return any Yahoo user can offer up answers to that question. The asker can choose a best answer or in the absence of the asker choosing a best answer, the community can vote on a best answer. The whole system works on a points system where you are charged points to ask a question, and awarded points for answering. At first this seems silly, and in fact many questions that you will find are, but the premise behind user generated content provides entertainment and information, as well as the ability to genuinely contribute to the online community.

Normally, the silly or frivolous questions would be annyoing, but I find them to be humorous and entertaining. However, the biggest draw for me is the ability to actually give back to the community by leveraging my searching ability and knowledge in areas that I am most knowledgable.

The system makes it fun and easy to share your knowledge. Unfortunately, this site is better suited to direct question and answer than it is for searching for existing answers.