Webware

Publishing giant Hearst Magazines announced on Wednesday plans to acquire Answerology, a New York-based start-up that offers a question-and-answer service for relationship advice. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but PaidContent reported that it was in the seven figures.

Matthew Milner, Answerology's founder, will be brought on board Hearst as vice president of community and social media in the conglomerate's Hearst Magazines Digital Media unit.

Answerology's schtick is that it allows users to ask anonymous questions about family, marriage, dating, and other heated subjects pertaining to relationships, and those questions can be targeted toward select age groups, genders, geographic regions, and personality types (i.e. "thinker" or "intellectual.")

Most of the questions on Answerology, which seems to have an admirably active core community, pertain directly to relationships, like this one: "By 39 years of age, is it a little weird if a man is still single, no solid career path, not close with his family, and only a select few close friends?" (Answer: Yes, but things will get better if you take away his Xbox.)

Other subjects of discussion fall more into a general "lifestyle" niche, for example, "When do you think you'll be able to retire?" (Answer: Never! Ever!)

Hearst hasn't been quite as avid in the Web acquisition space as some of its publishing brethren, but it has made a few notable buys: for one, social-shopping site Kaboodle, which it purchased last year.

Even though question-and-answer sites are a dime a dozen, the lifestyle- and relationship-oriented Answerology seems like a good fit for a magazine publisher--indeed, Hearst plans to work it into the Web properties for its 15 magazine titles.

And it had a funny publishing-industry connection to begin with: founder Milner originally conceived of Answerology as a tie-in for a "romantic-comedy novel" he wrote, Guy Critical.

Just how much does Ask.com own the word "Ask?" Enough to have a problem with a question-and-answer site called "Askpedia," apparently. Representatives from the start-up Askpedia.com told CNET News.com that the search engine's parent company, InterActiveCorp, sent a cease-and-desist letter earlier this month, citing intellectual property violations in the name "Askpedia."

"(This) is likely to cause consumer confusion, particularly inasmuch as Askpedia purports to provide online informational services that are substantially similar to those provided by Ask," the letter dated March 13 reads. "In using and incorporating Ask's intellectual property in this manner, Askpedia is falsely suggesting a connection between Ask and Askpedia, and thereby misappropriating the substantial good will associated with Ask's trademarks."

IAC representatives were contacted to verify the contents of the cease-and-desist letter, but were not immediately available for comment.

Ask.com's trademark on the name was first filed April 28, 1999, when the company was still known as Ask Jeeves and had not yet been acquired by the Barry Diller-helmed IAC in 2005. These days, the search engine has been undergoing a restructuring process in order to handle its tepid market share.

The letter, signed by Edward T. Ferguson, IAC senior vice president and general counsel, and provided to CNET News.com by Askpedia representatives, goes on to request that Askpedia "cease and desist from all use of Ask's trademarks and other intellectual property, including without limitation in the name 'Askpedia' or any similar formation using the word 'ask,'" and agree not to do so in the future.

A deadline of 10 days was provided, meaning that IAC would presumably seek legal action after Sunday, March 23.

Yong Su Kim, CEO of Askpedia, which describes itself as "a knowledge marketplace for questions and answers" and awards cash prizes to the best answers, said that his small start-up has about 100,000 registered users. He sent an e-mail to CNET News.com in which he speculated that "our guess is that their lawyers have nothing better to do."

Kim continued, "Either that or they're working on a Wikipedia-like service and want the domain name and trademark."

A few months back my roommate's rare house plant was dying. In a last ditch effort to bring it back to life, he enlisted my help. We scoured various message boards and Q&A sites with little success to get help identifying the plant (he got it as a gift).

The plant ended up going to that big greenhouse in the sky. The experience made me realize there's a pretty basic need for sites, such as PicAnswers, which lets anyone upload a picture and ask a question about it. Interestingly, the amount of high profile Q&A services that don't let users do this is surprising. One of the few to allow it is the AOL-owned Yedda, while sites such as Yahoo Answers, Microsoft's QnA Live, and Amazon.com's Askville are limited to text.

This looks like a toy gun but it's actually cable tie gun, which was correctly ID'd by the Q&A community at PicAnswers.com

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Like Amazon's Mechanical Turk project, PicAnswers is driven by humans. People upload their photos, and other users chime in if they can answer the query. A lot of the questions posed on the site range from simple identification issues like "what the heck is this?" to advice about what to do about a problem posted in the picture.

Here are a couple of my favorites so far:
Toothpick or food skewer?
My chili is yellow
Is there any Chinese poison in this toy?

Despite its simplicity, PicAnswers is missing two very helpful components: a way to vote on other user's answers to help filter down the best responses, and a karma system that makes it worthwhile to answer other people's questions. As it stands, you're left to sort through the answers yourself and answer out of the goodness of your heart. I'm hoping the site's creators add these soon. In the meantime, it's definitely worth bookmarking for the next time you unearth something that needs photo identification.

Time Warner unit AOL announced early Monday morning that it has acquired Yedda, a question-and-answer start-up that was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2006. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition, according to a release from AOL, was all about Yedda's code: the patent-pending semantic technology "automatically matches questions to other related questions and topics, while selecting the best available users to answer the question." Yedda-powered features are set to begin appearing on AOL's sites over the next few months.

AOL makes plenty of acquisitions, but most of the recent ones have been directly related to its renewed role as an advertising-focused media company. Last week, the company, which recently decided to move its headquarters to New York, purchased advertising-technology company Quigo, and in the spring, it acquired cell phone advertising firm Third Screen Media.

Questions spotted on Yedda, for the record, range from the practical to the bizarre--from "What was the name of the woman (model?) in the '80s video 'I Got My Mind Set On You" by George Harrison?" to "How can I install Boot Camp on an external drive?" to "How to build a barn owl cage?"

I came across an interesting site a few minutes ago from a BACN message from Myles Weissleder, creator of the SF New Tech Meetup group. One of the presenters, Mosio, will be showing off its site at next week's meetup. The company specializes in mobile Q&A, letting anyone with a phone ask a question via SMS or e-mail and get public replies back from other Mosio members. The site launched at the beginning of August and has since answered a good number of questions.

Like some other Q&A services, to ask and answer a question you've got to be a registered user, which Mosio calls "QnAgents." Unlike some expert-driven sites such as Citizendium, there are no prerequisites for being a Mosio agent, just the hope that you know the answers to the questions you're answering, or will go through the effort to research them. To ask a question, just write it as a text message and send it to ask@mosio.com. If anyone answers, you'll get a text back with his or her response. You can also check on Mosio's Web site for any replies. When you first ask a question, the system will automatically create a username and password for Mosio's site, so you can join up later to start befriending other Mosio users to track their responses.

In addition to simple Q&A, Mosio also offers a host of "apps," which are free, subscription-based text services that range from birthday reminders to content feeds from news providers. Like Twitter's tracking feature, you can turn them off and on, either by Web or through your phone. There's even a random Chuck Norris fact generator that admittedly is pretty useless, but free nonetheless.

I have to be honest, the look and feel of Mosio doesn't have anything on my other favorite Q&A site Fluther (review), but I'm really digging the mobile angle. Having just recently pulled the trigger on data for my phone after being on a barebones voice-only plan for the better part of a decade, I know there's a lot to be said for a site that lets you handle your business via SMS.

There is one big thing Mosio seems to be missing: a way to search through prior questions and answers. I suppose Mosio assumes that if you're visiting the site from your browser, you're on the Internet anyway, and can find the information elsewhere. Considering what Fluther and other Q&A repositories have done, though, a search with answers from humans might save you a question in the first place.

Related: Download.com's directory listing for Mosio

Ask a question. Get a response. At least that's the hope at Mosio, which is a questions-and-answers service with a mobile focus.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Fluther is a social question and answer site. Like similar services, it gives people a place to ask and answer questions amid a community of users. Fluther has taken this idea and given it an interesting twist, in adding a built-in tracking service. This service keeps track of your activity on the site and will let you monitor questions you've asked or answered in real time. The service also promises to direct questions toward so-called experts once they've successfully answered several questions in a certain topic or area of interest.

Oh, and if you're wondering what that name means, it's the technical term for a group of jellyfish. And for the pronunciation aficionados out there, it rhymes with "brother."

One of the more interesting tools on Fluther is the question browser, which displays question topics in a large tag cloud. Users enter these topics when adding their questions, and the larger tags indicate more questions in that topic. When viewing a question, you can also see related questions, which Fluther calls "siblings."

Fluther users can ask questions that can get answered by others in the Fluther community. The answers are displayed chronologically.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

To maintain a community feel, Fluther has implemented a fairly straightforward prestige system. You get points for continuing to use the site, as well as for the way others value your questions and answers. You can rank a question or answer, and if you come across one you feel is inaccurate or off-topic, you can also flag it. All of this gets displayed in your profile, and as a star rating under your name.

Fluther joins several other Q&A sites out there. Three of the more popular ones are Yahoo Answers, Microsoft's QnA, and Ask Metafilter. All three keep track of user interaction and participation, although Fluther's intimate feel is what attracted me to it in the first place.

The one thing that irks me about these services is that as they grow, questions and answers often get lost in the shuffle. Likewise, you're bound to see duplicates, spam, and a lack of educated answers. While the prestige system can help users self-enforce this, ultimately it's up to the creators to moderate and create tools that can empower responsible and trustworthy users.

[via Biz Stone:Genius]

Question-and-answer Web sites can connect the curious with the well informed, but some fail to live up to their promise. For instance, Yahoo Answers covers a vast array of subjects, but too often it attracts too many teenyboppers. With the new LinkedIn Answers, however, you can tap into the wisdom of a professional crowd.

This could be a great way of reaching out to those in the know without having to directly contact individuals who aren't so familiar with you. You can close a question to all but a small circle of chosen contacts. I also like that LinkedIn Answers displays topics posted and answered by people within my extended network. And lest hungry job-seekers clutter the pages, you're supposed to admit while posing a question if you're promoting your services, looking for work, or seeking to hire someone.

Many of the queries regard specific business matters, such as, "Which Source Code Management solution are you using and why?" Other questions are less concrete. Last time I checked, there were 68 responses to: "Will thoughts produce reality?" I left my question about the potential success or failure of Microsoft Office 2007 open to all of the 9 million members of the LinkedIn community, while alerting one software-savvy contact within my network. In less than an hour, I received a pair of thoughtful replies. Each query remains open for seven days before it is archived. I hope that LinkedIn Answers will attempt to eliminate duplicate questions as Answerbag does.

Overall, the uncomplicated interface is a snap to navigate. Still, while it's simple to look up contacts' names, I couldn't find an easy way to fish through the questions by subject. So far, however, along with its directory of services, LinkedIn's Answers appears to be a natural fit for this popular networking service.

Last August, I covered MyCroft, which was making a unique service that broke down tasks, such as translation, that could only be done well by humans. It spread out these tasks as challenges on advertising banners. Cool idea, but it was so way out there that it was unlikely to succeed. And indeed, is hasn't. The company has renamed itself inChorus and launched a new service with that name that takes the original MyCroft concept in a new direction. I got the skinny at last night's Silicon Valley New Tech Meetup.

Ask the crowd your (short) questions.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Now, instead of challenging random users to perform rote tasks such as translation and tagging, it encourages its questioners to launch "projects" that seek advice from the crowd. For example, you can ask for feedback on a product you're thinking of launching, or put a multiple-choice poll on the service, or (just like with the old version) ask users to tag photos or items.

What do these tasks have in common? Not much that I can see, and that's not good. I was initially intrigued by the open-ended project template on inChorus, but to me, a "project" consists of more than a single question and an answer that can be crammed into a standard advertising banner. Here's my project, for example. There's no room for depth there. It pains me to say it, but inChorus seems to be even more an example of a technology in search of a business than MyCroft was.

The concept of spreading work out to multiple users and sites does make sense, though. For example, the voting engine Vizu is interesting. Like inChorus, it distributes questions to multiple sites and communities, but the Vizu business model seems better thought out.

I liked what MyCroft was doing previously. I still believe that yoking the crowd of Net users together into a single engine of intelligence is a powerful idea, but this project seems a bit scattered.