Questions swirl over who will rule answers space

This week, Answers.com had a slew of press mentions from the demise of Google Answers. The partnership the company has with Yahoo! Answers received many favorable mentions. The specifics of the story were mentioned everywhere from major newspapers like USA Today to online blogs, like ContentBlogger. One story from TechNews World prominently features comments from Answers.com's own Bruce Smith.

An old blogger friend, CU Online, who has been known to repost material from the Teacher Toolkit newsletter was up to it again this week. She reprinted content from the November 26^th newsletter on both blufr and on our graphic organizer, Research Right. Mobile Answers got some press of its own in the education community. Steve Demb mentioned MobileAnswers as a valuable tool for teachers during his K-12 Online Conference presentation on mobile learning resources.

Blufr

Perhaps this guy should be writing copy for blufr. On his corporate blog, he states, “blufr is a trivia question game. More fun than playing board games with your teenage children ("what's a board game?"), more addictive than cannabis, more informative than the nine o'clock news, playing Blufr is better for your career than suicide and better for your verbal skills than a total laryngectomy.”

Another witty write up on the blogs this week challenges users: I bet you can’t just click one.

Turkey day trivia ... courtesy of Answers.com

This week’s edition is being brought to you a couple of days early because of the Thanksgiving weekend. Speaking of which, do you know what the most popular pastime is the night before Thanksgiving? Nope, it’s not preparing the stuffing or fowl for the next day’s festivities. It’s drinking!

In the Niagara Gazette, Kevin Purdy sources Answers.com which states that Thanksgiving eve is one of the busiest nights out in the northeastern United States for drinking and socializing. Hope this doesn’t effect anyone here on turkey day if they do participate in the, um, tradition.

This week, Answers.com made an appearance in a major newspaper, albeit the mention was a bit dubious. Bruce Horovitz in USA Today paints an ugly picture of marketers scheming and cheating to get in front of children for the holiday season. Out of the six dodgy strategies marketers use, he names one as “Bus Radio” (calling it a strategy seems like a stretch). Who would participate in this wretched scheme? Well, Bus Radio founder Michael Yanoff wouldn’t name any of their advertisers, except for Answers.com. (Ironically, I felt “thrown under the bus” when I saw us mentioned). Now, here is where you can interpret the story in one of two ways. Either readers will see us as guilty by association (even though we don’t sell toys) or they will see that Bus Radio mentioned our name because we are an altruistic company that is above reproach.

The big news for the company, however, was the partnership with Yahoo! Answers. The story was picked up on the wires and then written and blogged about across the mediascape. A sampling of some of these mentions are below:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/061121-093849

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=4023

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/11/21/yahoo-partners-with-answers-com/

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2061901,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

Wikipedia is an authoritative source ... way or no way?

Everyone has their own opinion, and nowhere is that more evident than in the press. Exhibit A:

Some articles hype Answers.com as better than Wikipedia, and some don’t. Tessa Wegert writing for ClickZ started her article by saying, “If your idea of a comprehensive research site is Wikipedia, you might want to familiarize yourself with Answers.com.” (The article also gives props to blufr and challenges marketers to use it in a creative way for their campaigns.) Bambi Francisco, however, points out that while Wikipedia updated Milton Friedman’s biography on the day of his death, Answers.com did not.

There were some late-to-the-party articles also floating around this week. Last week’s acquisition of FAQ Farm was mentioned in WriteNews and the month old deal with The New York Times appeared in RedOrbit – check out their tagline, “breaking news.”

In the blog world this week a researcher did some research on research sites and named Answers.com as a “worthy tool.” We got a similar mention as a “neat” reference tool from Alan Le.

Blufr

Did you know that blufr is ranked #2 for Most Popular Web 2.0 Apps? It is and blogger hotgirlswearsunglasses finds no shame in mentioning that she wastes the company’s time by playing the addictive trivia game. Another fan believes blufr is the answer to conversation lulls and Phyllis also gave blufr a shout out this week as her favorite site.

CBS Partnership dominates headlines

News of the partnership with CBS definitely dominated the headlines for Answers.com this week. Many of the mentions were basic reprints of the original press release. These popped up in publications like Media Week to Tech Web. Very few reporters did any actual reporting it seems on the partnership with the news media giant. One exception, however, was Joe Lewis for Web Pro News who at least took the time to comment, “The days of sitting around the television as a family and watching the nightly news are over. People not only want to be informed, they want to be involved in the information gathering process.”

Among the commentary and analysis that was made over the media deal, most of it came from bloggers. The writer of Editor Weblog noted that the move by CBS and NY Times to add AnswerTips provides readers with a “

more thorough and informative news experience that only the virtually infinite space and interconnectivity of the Web allows.” Other mentions were seen on Convergence Culture.

Elsewhere, our friend Allen November brought some positive press our way again. Speaking to a school group in Canada, Allen demonstrated how a search for Martin Luther King on Google brings up a pro-Nazi webpage as the top result. November concluded his presentation by stating that students need to search out “authoritative sources on sites such as Answers.com and be vigilant when it comes to identifying websites.” Thanks, Allen.

In the education category, there were also a great blog from a teacher who uses blufr in his classroom. The Reflective Teacher wrote that blufr is not only educational, but more importantly, fun for his students. He also gives kudos to the fact that “

no matter whether you answer correctly or incorrectly, the site gives you a little more information about the answer.”

There were also a couple of journalists spotted citing info from Answers this week. One columnist in

Winnipeg

inserted our definition of junk food while contemplating the debate over whether to tax Twinkies and Twizzlers. Another article from

Coulter Press

in Western Mass., used Answers.com to find the weight of a surprise calf that was born to a Brahma cow who hid the pregnancy from the farm’s owners.

Slight surge in stock rides recent press

This week, things are looking up – that is for ANSW stock. After being promoted as an Add-on for Internet Explorer 7 by Microsoft, reports started hitting the circuits that our stock was up by 14.7 percent on Wednesday, and as much as 21 percent on Thursday.

Other positive press will hopefully buoy the price. In particular, Information Today awarded Answers.com with the “Top Information Service” People’s Choice Award for 2006. The announcement said that “Information Today's audience recognized the benefits of Answers.com's approach with comments like: ‘One click, one site, fast, free access to quality sources integrated on one page per topic, and ‘Thorough, user-friendly and most of all: fast and easy!’ Answers.com also received an Honorable Mention in the contest as a “Top Social Networking Tool.”

Another warm, fuzzy mention came from a blog called Hidden Business Treasures. In the post, they call Answers.com “a great way to get specific and trusted information more quickly than you can from Google.”

Blufr also got its due this week when AskMen named it as one of the “Best and Coolest Sites Around.” The writers said about the trivia game that it is “highly addictive, I spent an hour going through some of the questions. It's fun and you might just learn something new!”

BTW – at the markets’ close, the stock price was $13.90

1-Click Answers and site receive praise

In the Kudos category this week, there are two in particular to report: A British firm nominated Answers.com as one of the Best Search Engines on the Web. The final winner will be decided by the masses. Go by the site to cast your vote.

The other recipient of unbridled praise was 1-Click Answers. Upon reviewing the product, Soft32Download said “we were impressed by the quality and cleanliness of your program.” They gave it a 5-star rating and a 100% Clean and Safe to install award."

A couple of education publications are also applauding our efforts. In their September newsletter, the Association of American Teachers told readers that Answers.com “gives your students instant access to the reference materials they need for papers and research.” They also encouraged educators to take advantage of our free poster center.

Another educator found the content of our last Teacher Toolkit newsletter so compelling that she reprinted part of it on her blog, CU Online. FYI -- the teacher newsletter began offering lesson plan ideas for each topic area. It will be interesting to see if this blogger (who appears on Answers.com blog list) posts next week’s content, as well.

Answers.com was also cited as a source in a few news articles this week. Alice Hill, of Real Tech News, provided her readers with a history of the Automat courtesy of Answers.com. It seems a modern-day Automat recently opened in New York City. The members of the Manhattan office (and those visiting from Israel) can go by St. Mark’s Place if they’d like lunch via the coin-operated vending machines.

A columnist, Rich Campbell, also used Answers.com to define a SLAPP lawsuit. Seems an ambitious real-estate developer brought one against a woman simply for showing up at town meetings to voice her opposition to his proposed plan. Nineteen other defendants were named in the grievance.

Elsewhere, a staff intern at The Daily News relied on Answers.com to tell readers what My Space is all about. I’m not quite sure why the reporter didn’t just go to the About Us link on My Space, but I won’t complain.

Answers.com cited as a safe source in education magazine

As the Marketing Department prepares itself for the Cyber Safety Summit in Sacramento Calif., Edutopia Magazine (put out by the George Lucas Educational Foundation) published a great article that touted Answers.com as better Google: Read, “Online On Alert.”

There were also some nice television spots that circulated this week on NBC and ABC. Most of the segments are a short overview of who we are and what we do, with a focus on 1-Click Answers. You can view them at the link below (be warned that I had trouble viewing these with Firefox): http://media.vmsnews.com/MonitoringReports/100206/653592/C000770851/

Another nice article (missed last week) comes from a blogger for Master NewsMedia. It’s a great story on the value of putting content in context. The reporter names us and our deal with the NYTimes as a model example.

Otherwise, around the Web, there were several reporters who sourced Answers.com for information used in their articles.

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