Comments on: Google answers goes away

Google answers goes away

mendel — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:27:13 -0800

By: mendel

mendel — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:27:42 -0800

There's been lots of idle chatter comparing AskMe to Google Answers in the past. Now the comparison is easy: AskMe is the one that's still up.

I think Google Answers got the incentives wrong: people enjoy helping out more when they're just helping out instead of doing paid work. What do you guys think?

By: logicpunk

logicpunk — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:34:58 -0800

...we're not getting paid...?

By: educatedslacker

educatedslacker — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:39:58 -0800

...we're not getting paid...?

*rips up checks with forged mathowie signature*

By: drezdn

drezdn — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:49:32 -0800

In your face... google!

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:54:05 -0800

I heard a rumor they were going to buy Metafilter, replace Answers with Ask, and shut down the rest of the site.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:02:12 -0800

I think Google Answers got the incentives wrong: people enjoy helping out more when they're just helping out instead of doing paid work. What do you guys think?

I think you are exactly right. I worked there for a while and the whole atmopshere was just ...wrong. People got fussy about other people "stealing" questions. People asking questions got fussy about whether the answer they got was "worth" the money they paid for it (sometimes a high numbe, sometimes a low number) and at the end of the day a lot of people were asking questions that couldn't be easily found on Google and yet the angle of the site was clearly to show people how to use Google to get answers.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:06:05 -0800

I worked there for a while

Sleeping with the enemy!

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:14:48 -0800

I worked there for a while... BEFORE ASKME WAS A GLEAM IN MATHOWIE'S EYE. Then I quit and came here. Okay?

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:27:49 -0800

And if we're reeeaaally lucky, Yahoo Answers will soak up all the slack of the "please do my math homework"-type morons.

Also, totally unrelated, but how in fuck's sake could anyone that's read the guidelines post this and not expect it to be deleted?

By: jonmc

jonmc — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:28:22 -0800

...we're not getting paid...?

maybe you're not.

*lounges in jacuzzi, sips Cristal*

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:31:04 -0800

My partner was involved with some research (conducted independently of Google) apropos Google Answers, and we've discussed her reading of the research literature.

GA provided a service that doesn't have competition as such in the commercial world. There are counterparts like Yahoo! Answers but there is no threshold to participation and the quality is awful.

An implicit conclusion is that without some investment on the part of the asker -- either of time in reciprocation, strict observation of social codes, or cash -- a public Q/A forum won't go far. In the case of GA, quality is pretty high, even while handling stupid questions. Not everybody successfully navigates the social and financial codes, though, and their own experiences are pretty poor.

In AskMe's case, there is a simple bozo filter in place and social codes enforced. It's pretty easy to get certain types of questions here answered but usually not the ones that require hours of dedicated research or are too idiosyncratic for anybody to deal with directly. And there's no penalty for helpiness (eg, providing 'aw poor baby' instead of an answer, or answering tangentially, or asking the questioner their motivation when motivations are irrelevant).

There is also competition in the scholastic world, something my partner keeps reminding me. There is the Internet Public Library's Ask a Question (in part staffed by grad students who do this as part of their training and are graded for it) and the Library of Congress' Ask a Librarian.

Many libraries offer these exact same research services for free, online. Some will handle questions through IM. Most services are constrained to those with campus affiliations, but some are available to the general public.

That link doesn't say why Google's closing the service. My guess is that it was high maintenance, low revenue, a liability risk, and lacked any interesting technology that could compensate for the other problems. Google might put all this speculation to shame and come out with a totally revised service in two months. Google's delphic that way.

By: Mayor West

Mayor West — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:32:21 -0800

I've been a Researcher (never get tired of that capital R) there for ages, and while I'm sad to see it go, yeah, I much prefer the AxeMe model. With Ask, you answer what you feel qualified to answer (er, ideally), and don't worry too much about second-guessing that answer, because, hey, it's basically friendly advice. There's also no sense of valuation of questions--the guy asking for marketing research and the guy asking about dangly bits are on the same level, because there's no set of guidelines saying 'He paid $50 for the answer, so your response should take you at least three hours to complete.'

Also, the total disconnect between peoples' perceived value of the questions they were asking and the Researchers' perceived value of their time was deadly from the beginning, and I never saw it addressed properly. I suspect that's what finally killed it.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:51:24 -0800

the total disconnect between peoples' perceived value of the questions they were asking and the Researchers' perceived value of their time was deadly from the beginning, and I never saw it addressed properly.

I feel the same way. I really felt that when there were systematic concerns with the way the whole thing worked, either on the part of the Researchers or the question askers, there wasn't a way to really talk to someone, a human, about the system. I was there for early beta, so this may have changed dramatically, but there was a black box system to some of the processes and procedures there that seemed to boil down to a "trust us" assertion on the part of the people running the place. This blog post is the first time I knew a name of someone at Google who worked there; all the communications we got from them just were signed "the editors" and I think there is something about human accountability that matters which is one of the things I like about it here: mathowie and I are answerable for all the adminning that happens on AskMe. Everyone might not like our answers, but they are always entitled to one.

There was also a forward-facing information problem at Google Answers. There was a great FAQ, but because of the money angle it had a lot of legalistic language there and it was hard to get answers to basic questions like "when are you guys accepting researcher applications again?" I wrote an article or two about working for Google Answers which were high results when someone Googled for Google Answers information and I probably got an email every other week for years from people asking me questions about Google Answers (or trying to hire me to answer their market research questions) that they couldn't get answered on the site. Clearly there was an information need not being met.

The implication was that researchers were people who had "leveled up" from being really good commenters and so there was this class distinction between people who could only comment and people who had earned the right to get paid for commenting. With commenters erally seeming to be striving to basically answer questions in the comments. When I was there -- and again this was early -- there was also a sense in which if you weren't a good researcher you might get demoted and so the social aspect seemed heavy on stick, low on carrot since a lot of the questions didn't pay well but you felt like it was important to do a good job anyway even if people were being a little ridiculous to you.

Here's my accounting statement for all the questions I answered and what I got paid for them, if you want a slice into what working there was like for a month in 2002.

By: rongorongo

rongorongo — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 08:12:28 -0800

Jessamyn - back in July I bookmarked an interesting article by somebody who had made a pitiful sum of money while working for GA. I was about to link to it when I realised it was by you.

By: rxrfrx

rxrfrx — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:04:45 -0800

I was a GA Researcher from the beginning - I managed to slip in my "application" back when they were initially soliciting them. I think that it's true that people enjoy answering questions for the heck of it more than they do for money, as there's a lot less responsibility involved. I stopped trying to answer questions at GA for money when most answers started being submitted as "comments." That is, they were unpaid and didn't close the thread. There became this atmosphere where if you just jumped in and submitted a real Answer, even if it were totally great, you'd be this ass trying to make money off of all the altrustic "comments."

By: rxrfrx

rxrfrx — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:07:38 -0800

Oh yeah, and the Google blanket gift was perplexing at first (it's like a towel, but made of fleece and it says Google on it?) but later became very useful as a blanket for the cat.

By: Mayor West

Mayor West — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 10:02:39 -0800

Holy crap, rxrfrx, you've solved the problem that's been plaguing me lo these two years: let the dog use it.

Though, that blanket has some serious nerd cred.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 10:31:10 -0800

Though, that blanket has some serious nerd cred.

A schwag rag!

By: carsonb

carsonb — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 11:17:39 -0800

...you've solved the problem that's been plaguing me lo these two years...

you coulda just asked.

By: Lynsey

Lynsey — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 12:18:05 -0800

What jessamyn said - I, too was a Google answerer but quickly realized it was not a good use of my time. I never answered a question successfully (got paid) but I did receive a lovely parting gift, a Google blanket, which I cherish and revere to this day (we use it as one of our photography backdrops and it's awesome!).

By: misterbrandt

misterbrandt — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 13:27:14 -0800

Some more Jessamyn-related bits in the Ars Technica piece. Jessamyn, did they talk to you for this piece, or just read your blog?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 13:51:57 -0800

Some more Jessamyn-related bits in the Ars Technica piece. Jessamyn, did they talk to you for this piece, or just read your blog?

I had a long chat with the reporter this afternoon. You can read what we talked about here.

By: misterbrandt

misterbrandt — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:08:22 -0800

How cool--a meta-view of journalism in action. Interweb rocks.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:34:45 -0800

Yeah, that was fascinating—thanks for posting it. And I can't believe you went to this much trouble over $4, and then got stiffed anyway! I wouldn't have lasted a day in that particular galley.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 15:01:15 -0800

How cool--a meta-view of journalism in action

Yeah, fascinating to see that transcript. I'm pretty stunned at someone doing an interview via IM at all, but then giving the interviewee permission to put it online complete with said interviewee catching typos is just a crackers thing for the journalist to do. (Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I'll only do interviews face to face or on the 'phone, unless there's a very good reason to do it via email - eg. if the person is uncomfortable speaking English, but can write it.)

By: beagle

beagle — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:08:36 -0800

Someone has posed the question of where the 800 researchers will go after the shutdown. The question will probably be deleted shortly, so here's the text:

Subject: Next steps?
Category: Miscellaneous
Asked by: aidan3211-ga
List Price: $2.00 Posted: 29 Nov 2006 16:53 PST
Expires: 29 Dec 2006 16:53 PST
Question ID: 786788

I assume that Google's announcement of the impending termination of
the answers service (unfortunate at best for a great resource) will be
accompanied with a migration of its professionals to similiar
services, hopefully a single service for the majority that will
maintain the community. In your opinion, what are the most likely
candidates? Also, with the realization that Google may not have
relaxed their policies sufficiently for an answer, are there any plans
to provide reference services to the participants so that they can
continue building on the reputations established here?

Answer
There is no answer at this time.

Comments
There are no comments at this time.

So, someone with credentials, please invite them over here!

By: beagle

beagle — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:10:13 -0800

Sorry, meant to link to the above.

By: beagle

beagle — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:10:45 -0800

Seem to be having trouble linking, so:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=786788

By: beagle

beagle — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:22:36 -0800

One possible very simple reason for closing up shop is that the potatoes are just too small for Google to bother with. The above is question 786788; some questions get deleted, so they've probably had 750,000 questions in 4 years, under $200,000. If half get answered at a price that looks to be around ten bucks, then the average researcher makes maybe $50 a week. Meanwhile, Google makes money putting ads on there, but probably the average question gets only a few hits, after a while, and those are worth just pennies apiece. All in all, its hard to do the math to get to more than a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue for Google a year, meaning they certainly lost money on it, plus it's just to tiny to bother with in relation to everything else they have going.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:58:45 -0800

Jessamyn, your answer to that Gladstone quote attribution question is *amazing*. I prostrate myself before you.

By: rsanheim

rsanheim — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:34:57 -0800

I'm guessing part of this is due to Google's latest effort from the top to cut down on the amount of products they are offering, and instead focus on integrating and refining they have. When you consider that an answer service doesn't really play into the doc/spreadsheet/mail suite they have, it not surprising they want to drop the maintenance and cost of this.

By: furtive

furtive — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 04:44:09 -0800

I don't think it drew much traffic either. I remember visiting and checking out the Q&A section when it first came out, and itching to answer one of the question, only to discover on had to be a hired researcher and that they weren't hiring anyone. Lo and behold it was the same thing when I visited again a few months ago, which led me to predict this exact outcome. Thanks Matt for letting anyone be a Researcher.

P.S. I'm in your google, answering your questions.

By: advil

advil — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 13:20:43 -0800

Now the comparison is easy: AskMe is the one that's still up.

Well, unfortunately in the minds of much of the mainstream press and public, it is apparently yahoo answers that is the one still up.

By: signal

signal — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 13:56:33 -0800

Well, unfortunately in the minds of much of the mainstream press and public, it is apparently yahoo answers that is the one still up.

Fixed that for ya.

By: scarabic

scarabic — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 08:42:32 -0800

YA is nice but ridiculously out of control.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 10:33:43 -0800

Under another alias, I was a GAR for a while in 2002: still use my toasty Google blankie, too.

For me, the point wasn't the (admittedly low) money — I spent far more hours researching and answering questions than I would ever get paid for — but the opportunity to dig into new areas, to explore the Web's resources, and to say, "Hey, looky what I found." Kind of like MetaFilter (you couldn't post images there, either), but more civilized.

Researchers weren't hired, but were selected by GA editors after submitting qualifications and sample answers. You were paid 75% of a question's price if the answer was accepted: no answers, no $. Some answers took minutes, and others hours, but the fun was in getting there. And at the time, who knew what GA might have become?

Web Owls has posts and comments from (now former) Google Answers researchers, and there are early interviews with several at Google Blogoscoped. IMHO, missy and pinkfreud were two of the best.

By: Chuckles

Chuckles — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 13:44:15 -0800

Wow, jessamyn, you really made it easy on that arstechnica guy.. Aren't reporters supposed to work for their stories?

me: super 1.0, silly.

Ah.. right..

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 13:55:45 -0800

you really made it easy on that arstechnica guy.

I grew up in a house with a parent who spoke in soundbytes and I think I learned it as a second language early on. Sometimes it comes in handy.