May 2, 2008

Live Search QnA Gets Updates

Microsoft's Live Search team has announced updates to its answer feature, QnA. The updates to the service, still in Beta, are being dubbed the "Renaissance release" and include the following, according to their blog:

Focus on the QnA experience for new users.
Encourage users to discover content and functionality in new ways.
Highlight and award higher quality content by featuring members who are Top Contributors in given areas of expertise.

When it comes to search, answers are where it's at for an increasing number of searchers. Recent data showed answer sites growing 118% in 2007, while social media is a medium for answer-finding as well.

For example, conducting a search for "laptop" in a search engine may return a list of companies selling laptops, but a searcher is really looking for a product that has good performance. Those answers are found through consumer and expert reviews, and answer sites are a source of that kind of information.

Microsoft's Live Search team seems to understand this search behavior. Recently, they updated their product search experience and added products to mobile search.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:18 AM | Permalink

March 5, 2007

Justin Osmer Interviewed about Live QnA

My latest interview was with Justin Osmer of Microsoft. Our discussion focused on the Live QnA product. Microsoft has taken a very interesting approach to the QnA product.

They are treating it as an enhancement to search, rather than a destination site (which appears to be Yahoo!'s approach). Justin observed that there are queries that a purely algorithmic search engine can never answer, such as "where is a great Italian place in Seattle?" However, other people can give you their opinions on that, and you can get a real answer.

Another interesting idea we discussed was the possibility that Microsoft may begin to integrate access to such answers into the core of Live Search. This is consistent with Microsoft's approach of treating this functionality as an enhancement to core search. One key to making this work is the system for rating the quality of the answers, where the person who asked the original question gets a highly weighted vote in picking the best answer.

I look at this as another demonstration of the social web in action. Questions get answered very quickly once you ask them, and there are obviously lots of people who actively scan open questions looking to provide answers. While you get points for such activity, the points are not redeemable, so they act primarily as a badge of honor. I should point out though that Microsoft may make the points redeemable in the future, but clearly this is what is not driving the activity of the people answering the questions.

Posted by at 9:39 AM | Permalink

August 30, 2006

Windows Live QnA Beta Now Live

The Windows Live QnA Blog announced the other day that Windows Live QnA is now a public beta, meaning you can test it out yourself at http://qna.live.com/. Question and Answer search engines are now the new hot social search thing. Yahoo has been pouring money and promotions into Yahoo Answers and Google has their Google Answers product for a while. We covered QnA in the past, the first time was when they had a private beta and the second time is when we saw some screen captures posted. We may have a more detailed review on Windows Live QnA in the future, for now, you can play with it at http://qna.live.com/.

Postscript From Danny: I couldn't help but laugh at the top question I saw when I popped in, which is better, window live QnA or Yahoo Answers?. And you've got to love that among the top superstars who answer questions is this person, yahoo_answers_sucks.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:18 AM | Permalink

May 8, 2006

Windows Live QnA In Action

The MSN Search Blog mentions the new Windows Live QnA service and also has a link to the MSN Spaces QnA blog that has details with screen shots of the new offering. So if you are interesting in taking a look at Microsoft's answer to Google Answers and Yahoo Answers, visit the QnA blog. We had a short brief on this new service on Friday.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:13 AM | Permalink

May 5, 2006

Windows Live QnA Beta - Microsoft's Answer To Google & Yahoo Answers

ResourceShelf reports on a new invite only beta service by Microsoft named Windows Live QnA. The program is similar to Google Answers and Yahoo Answers. The service is described as "Windows Live QnA Beta lets you ask any question and get the 411 from people who have the answers you're looking for. Everybody's an expert on something--including you--so tap into that collective brain power and contribute your own." If you want to sign up for the beta, go here and enter your hotmail address in the form - this is only open to US based users.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:33 AM | Permalink

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