no.stupid.answers

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.

WikiAnswers got a big fat biographical interview yesterday on AltSearchEngines, a blog covering the growing search engine scene.

While I might characterize WikiAnswers as less a search engine and more a directory of Q&A, there is a strong aspect of search that has been improved in recent weeks.

One of the unique things about WikiAnswers is that it utilizes the wiki format, creating a new page for every new question - unless the question is asked again, in which case you’ll get directed to the existing page. From there you can get the answer and add on to it if you know any more information.

Using smart language technology, the site searches its listing of Q&A to find questions that closely match what you’ve asked. If there is no exact match (which might even be the same question in different words) then you get a list of close matches. You can choose one of them as your question or ask your question separately.

So perhaps WikiAnswers may be viewed as a search engine of sorts - a self-growing search engine, that can only get better and better as you ask and answer more and more questions.

Top Guru (and CEO) at Answers Corp, Bob Rosenschein, was featured in the “CEO Views” column at AltSearchEngines.com yesterday. His post was about his vision of the “ultimate Answers Engine,” combining the powers of Answers.com, the world’s greatest encyclodictionalmanacapedia, and WikiAnswers, Q&A the Wiki way.

Here’s an excerpt:

“The world of information has evolved from telephones to radios to televisions to the internet… Information has never been more available or expansive. But we find ourselves wading through facts and figures and volumes of webpages overloaded with content… It can be overwhelming, and search engines have certainly come to the rescue for narrowing the web. But if we want to narrow it further – enough to get that one answer we’re seeking in any given search – then hasn’t the time come for an answer machine?

Our goal at Answers Corp is build the web’s ultimate answer engine. The typical search engine is great for getting back thousands of results for deep search. When you want fast info and quick answers to questions, wouldn’t it serve you better to visit an answer engine? That’s what we are building with our two main products, Answers.com and WikiAnswers. Both sites are designed to give you straightforward content, packed with information from either reference sources or the wider human Q&A community.”

Sounds great, Bob… Read the full blog post. And don’t forget to vote for Answers.com in AltSearchEngine’s Search Engine of the Year contest…

My blogger-buddy Charles Knight over at AltSearchEngines.com has included Answers.com in the running for his Search Engine of the Year 2007 contest. Answers.com was Search Engine of the Month in September.

Love Answers.com and WikiAnswers? Help show support by voting for us! List Answers.com in a comment at the contest entry and also a little bit (or a lot) about why we’re the world’s greatest encyclodictionalmanacapedia.