Question and answer services are considered a growth area for search engine and social network service websites. Witness Facebook’s move to add a question feature to the world’s most popular social site. Sites like KGB and Cha Cha advertise that they remove the clutter while focusing on relevant responses unlike general search engines Google or Bing.
The assumption that these sites deliver more relevant information is the foundation that supports the pay-per answer business models that drive revenue for these sites. But just because the sites claim to offer better information, that is not necessarily the case. The question therefore is; should you pay money as opposed to taking the time to go through a few pages of Google links and get basically the same information for free?
After trying several of the top pay per answers sites while comparing results along side those of free answer providers such as Answers.com and Yahoo Answers the verdict is decidedly mixed.
On the free side, Answers.com, the main web offering behind the Israelis based Answers Corporation (ANSW), has just released its newly-designed mobile version for iPhone, Android and other hand-held devices.
Answers.com is a community-generated
Q&A website, whose corporate cousins include
WikiAnswers and
ReferenceAnswers.com. The main site, launched in January 2005, has had several mobile versions during that time. Both sites support English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish languages.
The quality of responses varies in relation to the knowledge base of the community member who has volunteered to answer the question. This rates well on general information questions such as the type you would see on a show like Jeopardy. On more specific questions (for example... did Michael Jackson use skin whiteners?) it is hit or miss. Answers.com has a new mobile version can which be accessed at
http://m.answers.com or
www.answers.com
The site, while an upgrade on the previous mobile versions, doesn't really provide any better experience than a user would get by going to Google.com on their mobile phones. Indeed, the app is basically just a scaled down version for the regular Answers.com site. But again, the knowledge base was good for a free service.
Yahoo Answers is a free app that connects your iPhone or iPod touch to Yahoo Answers community Q&A website that allows users to submit questions to be answered and answer asked questions from other users. Yahoo Answers currently hosts over 100 million questions. Yahoo's site is the undisputed king of the genre. Yahoo's site is so popular it rendered Google' s answer site irrelevant. The answers are of excellent quality and usually present several different responses to choose from. Yahoo Answers is free done right and can hold its own with any of the pay per answers sites.
That pay as you get answers model may not be as well trafficked as a Yahoo or Google, but some of these sites pull in significant revenue (KGB is reported to have earned over $600 million last year) and are considered ripe acquisition targets.
KGB, in fact, offers a free app,
KGB Answers that provides one free answer then charges $.99 per question. The app itself is convenient and in a trial run of of six different questions the site provided spot on answers. While Google offers much the same content for free, KGB provides a clean interface, and does remove the so-called "rubbish" links. Was it worth the $6.00? Maybe, maybe not when one considers how good Google is. But in a pinch or a one off situation KGB certainly gets the job done.
ChaCha also offers a fee app, developed in partnership with AT&T, that allows users to ask a question using voice or text. You can see similar questions and their answers and retrieve your 10-question history on your iPhone.
Cha Cha is a free service but text rates can apply. The service is similar in quality to Yahoo Answers while lacking the former's depth. Overall the user interface and quality of responses makes Cha Cha a recommendable service.
The final verdict: While the pay-per answer services are in most cases excellent resources, the best resource (Google) is still free.
