no.stupid.answers

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

Everyone was talking about it yesterday, and everyone had a different take -

NYTimes: Ask.com Revamps Search Engine

eWeek: Ask.com Sails into Semantic Search to Differentiate from Google

Mashable: Ask.com Now Actually Delivers Answers

Search Engine Land: Ask.com Goes Back To 1996 With New Release

AdAge: Ask.com Returns to Answers

Well, however it’s reported, the point is that the Q&A trend is growing strong. Ask.com’s new search bar boasts options like ‘web’, ‘images’, ‘news’ and… ‘lots of answers’. The Q&A search option seems to have the safety net of the Beta tag, but the truth is I think it works out pretty well. It takes your search term and scans the major Q&A sites for relevant pages.

Look up Chicago Cubs, for instance, and you get a wonderful selection from one major Q&A site that I happen to be particularly fond of… Even if it’s not a baseball team I care for.

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!