no.stupid.answers

Occasionally I like to share the AnswerTips love, since it’s an Answers.com webmaster tool that keeps on giving.

Double-click any word of text on this page and you’ll see what I mean… Boom, instant definition!

John of ChurchCrunch agrees; check out his review of AnswerTips, which he added to his blog yesterday. In his own words:

I literally stumbled upon this service provided by Answers.com yesterday and I was floored at how easily it could be implemented and used.

AnswerTips from Answers.com is a very simple service that allows your readers to simply double-click on any word on the site to pull up an in-browser modal window to help define or explain the word. Just go ahead and try it here on ChurchCrunch.com!

Thanks for sharing, John…

Are you one of those folks who boasts about your online membership to the New York Times in order to look smart? Yet you have no idea what half the words mean? Do you skip the crossword puzzles altogether?

Well, now’s your chance to shine: If you double-click any word in an New York Times article, you’ll see a small question mark pop up next to the word:

Click that icon and voila - you get instant information from Answers.com about the word you clicked:

Give it a try… Here’s an article to start with: Ringing In 2009 with People Power

The folks at a SuckMyThumb.com forum have added an AnswerBox and AnswerTips to their forum pages. It’s amazing how easily it fits in with the rest of the forum features.

Now their users can click on any word and get an instant definition, as well as research a topic straight from the AnswerBox.

I wonder if that leads to smarter forum posts…

Mozilla just released the latest Firefox into the wild, and it’s supposed to be 3 times the fun. While I’m playing around with the new toy, I’m noticing something even cooler:

The Answers.com add-on for Firefox is featured on the Firefox start page in the Learn tab. The add-on is basically a version of 1-Click Answers for your browser. It’s cool for a lot of reasons which I will now list:

• No matter what page you’re browsing in Firefox, you can Alt-click any word and get an instant pop up with the definition or additional facts. Kind of like the way you can double-click anywhere on this blog - you’d get the same AnswerTip. The AnswerTip is easy to close and non-invasive, in case you’re creeped out by pop ups.
• This will totally help you out when you don’t feel like leaving the web page you are viewing to find out what a weird word means.
• Eventually, you will start to Alt-click real things in your life, like a bizarre vegetable or fancy statue, in order to find out more… and you’ll be sad when you realize that there is life away from the computer screen.

If you just want to add it right now, go ahead. If you want to learn more about accessing Answers.com from Firefox, you can do that too.

The American University of Rome website did it. Catalogablog did it. Tons of other bloggers have done it.

What have they done?

Added AnswerTips functionality to their blogs.

What do I mean?

Double-click any word on this page to find out.

What are you going to do next?

Get AnswerTips and keep your readers on your own site!

As Yoni Greenbaum, blogger of editor on the verge, writes: Don’t let your lack of time hurt your readers! He’s added the AnswerTips feature to his site - like the NYTimes and CBS News before him - in order for readers to be able to double-click any word and get a quick definition. Comes in handy for the classic blogger dilemma: don’t feel like linking definitions but don’t want to lose readers, either.

Never heard of that dilemma before? Well, I kinda just made it up. But not really, because clearly Yoni has experienced it. Eradicate the possibility of losing site visitors because of linking laziness: AnswerTips-enable your website!

Check this out: Scott of It’s a Nou Day! just posted an awesome idea.

He’s added AnswerTips to his blog and is now adding a word of the day to the bottom of his posts. If his readers want to see the meaning, they’ve got to double-click. Instead of being taken to a new page, they get a small bubble with the definition; when they are done reading, they just close it.

Everybody wins; Scott and his readers learn something new and nobody has to leave his site.

Today’s word for Scott is cantankerous. Hmm… A bit of a ‘disagreeable’ word for such a lovely idea, but we’ll take it! (Psst… double-click to find out what it means.)

And, of course, what better to title the idea but Nou Word of the Day…

By the way, no.stupid.answers is AnswerTips-enabled, too, so feel free to double-click anywhere and get a pop-up definition.

Thanks Scott!