no.stupid.answers

With enthusiasm matching that of the WikiAnswers community-at-large, dozens of Answers Corp employees gathered together for the best use of the lunchroom ever… A mini AnswerThon, where they could actually win something for participating.

From product managers to office managers, system techies to content editors, the room was filled with the diversity and creativity of the team behind WikiAnswers.

Here’s a run down in photos:

Busy bees at work!

I wonder which category he’s getting so thoughtful about…

Sometimes the floor is the best place to find the answers to life’s questions. Or recategorize them.

Hey, what’s so funny - the Humor and Amusement category?

Nothing like going to work on WikiAnswers…

Good news everyone!

Looks like we aren’t the only ones who love the idea of a wiki-based community-driven Q&A database, where anyone can ask, answer or edit questions and answers. There’s a new friend in town, and that’s Redpoint Ventures, a venture capital firm who believes in the WikiAnswers vision as much as the rest of us do.

Reuters already has the story here. The official Answers.com press release breaks it down like this:

Answers Corporation Announces Private Placement to Redpoint Ventures of up to $13 Million
WikiAnswers Exceeds Three Million Questions

“Through a transaction executed on June 16, 2008, Answers issued $6 million of series A convertible preferred stock, convertible into 1,333,333 shares of common stock at a conversion price of $4.50 per share, with 50% warrant coverage at an exercise price of $4.95. Additionally, Redpoint was issued a second tranche warrant, exercisable over the next 12 months, to purchase up to an additional $7 million of series B convertible preferred stock, convertible into 1,272,727 shares of common stock at a conversion price of $5.50 per share, with 50% warrant coverage at an exercise price of $6.05.”

Is that a lot of jargon for you? Let’s have a word from Answers Corp CEO Robert Rosenschein:

“We are extremely pleased with this strategic investment and validation of both our products and growth opportunity by a top tier Silicon Valley venture capitalist… With this partnership, we gain access to Redpoint’s team, connections and industry experience. The last public company they invested in was Intermix, parent of MySpace, subsequently sold to News Corp in 2006. We look forward to Redpoint’s valuable contribution and support.”

Damn! MySpace, eh? Thems pretty big apples. Speaking of apples, Allen Beasley of Redpoint (I’m sure he likes apples or something) had this to add:

“The Answers properties, but especially WikiAnswers.com, represent the type of high growth opportunity we look for. With over 11 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May, according to comScore, WikiAnswers is an emerging leader in the social knowledge space. We look forward to working closely with the company to help accelerate its growth.”

Check that out - Allen gets the social knowledge thing. What a great new force to have on board (literally, he’s joining the Board of Directors).

Well, this makes me feel so good I’m going to have an ice cream cone. I wonder if ‘awesome’ is a flavor.

Note: here are other places where the news has been mentioned:

paidContent.org

Washington Post

CNN Money

Triangle Business Journal

Barron’s Tech Trader Daily

Globes

Venture Beat

Red Herring

Market Watch

Let’s talk about camels. Why, you undoubtedly ask?

First of all, yes, Camels is a category on WikiAnswers and yes, you should definitely check it out, because if you are a zoo keeper, desert wanderer or biologist, it will just plain knock your socks off, and if you are not one of those, then it will crack you up, like so:

What do you call a camel with three humps?

A freak!

Second of all, camels totally creep me out. They always look high and they always seem to be laughing at you. “Ya, mon - you wanna ride wit me?”

Third of all, I needed an excuse to post this photo I have entitled, “The Scream II: Girl and Camel.” I won’t give away which one of them is the Answers Corp employee… yet.

This week, Bob Rosenschein, CEO of Answers Corp, took a minute to explain WikiAnswers in depth to Fred Fishkin of Bloomberg Radio. You can listen here in MP3 format (try this if using Windows Media Player). Or read his own words:

“WikiAnswers is in the spirit of Wikipedia. Wikipedia, as everybody knows, is the world’s largest online encyclopedia. Anybody can edit it. You can edit it. If you see a mistake or want to enrich a page, you can make the Wikipedia page better. Of course, there’s back and forth, you can also vandalize a page. But typically, on the average, the quality of a Wikipedia page goes up over time. And that’s why it’s such a trusted, useful source of information.

Well, we are not the Wikipedia of encyclopedias, we are the Wikipedia of online Q&A. That means that if you have a question, you ask it of our community, you can go to WikiAnswers.com, and type in a question. Anything. It could be health related. It could be relationships. It could be automobiles. It doesn’t matter. You ask a question and other people will answer it.”

As WikiAnswers grows, a lot of people seem to be getting it confused with Wikipedia. The two sites are both wikis, growing based on contributors lending knowledge. Like Bob said, though, WikiAnswers is in a Q&A format, differing from the encyclopedic route of Wikipedia.