Content and Contest News

Two announcements were released from corporate this week. First, Answers.com announced that its popular product, AnswerTips, will be featured on the financial site WallStreet Direct. In addition, Answers.com and WikiAnswers have recently added to their content. Here’s a quick recap of some new offerings:

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Handbooks for professional research, hobbies and general interest, such as architecture & construction, boating and genealogy

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Guides covering classical, French, German and Irish literature, as well as a general literary dictionary

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Religious reference, including a dictionary of saints, as well as works on Celtic, African and Asian mythology

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Recent major U.S. Supreme Court decisions

Since our last installment, Director of Marketing, Jay Bailey, had not just one, but two, articles appear under his byline. “Questioning the Answers,” which appeared in Upgrade magazine, is a snappy piece that lays out the challenges of online search — and how Answers.com is positioning itself as the ultimate solution. The piece can be accessed at the SIIA website or you can check it out in the public marketing folder.

Jay also wrote an opinion piece that appeared in MediaPost mid-May. In the article, he lays out an alternative to the IAB’s initiative to create standards on web metrics.

VP of Strategic Development, Bruce Smith, didn’t have his own byline, but he garnered some press for his appearance on the panel “Tapping into User Generated Content.” ClickZ did a recap of the main points, but you can also watch a video of the panel here.

An article with no affiliation Answers.com came out touting AnswerTips this month. Website Magazine named the download one of “Seven Sizzling Site Tools for Every Webmaster.” That article, unfortunately, is only available in the dead-tree version, but can be accessed in the public folder for marketing.

Want to make sure Answers.com makes another list, too? Surf over to CNETs Webware 100 Awards. Answers.com is a finalist in the reference category. Voting is open until June 11^th, but why not just click here now and vote, before you forget.

Product Praise

When Kyle Monson wrote a PC Magazine story on 11 Ways to Search Without Google, he had no way of knowing that it would trigger a maelstrom of e-mail. In response, he wrote a separate blog post including four more search engines and services that he failed to include in the original. Of Answers.com, he says:

“While not technically a search engine, Answers.com is a good way to find what you're looking for. Punch in your search query and you'll get information back instead of links. It's a great site for reference purposes when you don't feel like wading through a ton of links.”

Many Answers.com products received praise over the past couple of weeks. Take for instance, AnswerTips. Wilf from Wilf’s Wine Press raised a glass of merlot to Director of Marketing, Jay Bailey, for helping him straighten out an issue with his beloved program. ContentBlogger, which just won a CODiE award for Best Media Blog, also mentions Answertips in his post about his site redesign. And The Hindu made a survey of the widget landscape, featuring AnswerTips among them.

Note in The Hindu article that the author writes: “the famous online answer service, Answers.com.” Even more breathless praise is found at the AZ Daily Sun who calls Answers.com an “Internet-based phenomenon.”

Talking about breathless praise, it seems that mobile is making just about everyone pant over the potential… even librarians. “Email is for old people,” said Megan Fox, a keynote presenter at the CIL conference in Arlington. Mobile devices, she continued, will be what people rely on more often for everything from email to information searches. Demonstrations of a few, select sites were shown to the audience during the packed presentation — among them was MobileAnswers. You can read some reviews at Libraryola, Infotodayblog and CIL blog, written by two attendees.

MobileAnswers was also mentioned by Be Connected, which says, “It will have you looking like the goto person you want to be.”

Finally, WikiAnswers. According to Alex Pham’s article “Go ahead, just ask a question” in The LA Times, interviewees say that Q&A sites are addictive. It’s kind of just a matter of people wanting to be recognized, says Tuesday Creative, who comments on Pham’s story and even features a great picture of the redesigned WikiAnswers at the top of his post.

Tooling Around the Web

One of the most fundamental things found in any home, apartment or car is a toolkit.

Well, after buying a cheapo tool kit at Sears, Charles Knight was inspired to create a tool-kit for another place people spend loads of time — on their phone. In his piece article on Read/Write Web, MobileAnswers is one component he recommends in his 85 piece mobile search tool kit. He says about his creation: “If Mobile is going to be ‘the Next Big Thing,’ you're going to need all the tools you can get in order to be prepared for every eventuality.”

Presearch is a term coined by Answers.com, but has caught on in the general public. Jay Bailey, Director of Marketing, says presearch, along with Encyclodictionalmanacapedia, are “catchy,

descriptive

and don’t sound too much like the words of a Marketroid . They tell a story.” That must be why, there was a recent article about presearch on The Librarian Edge blog.

My father is a great bowler. This is not something that I brag about. In fact, I used to be somewhat embarrassed that this was his sport of choice (you wouldn’t call him the athletic type), but recently bowling has become much more popular. In fact, the Answers.com Israel office had a recent company outing to a local bowling alley, and the New York office is eagerly following suit, with plans in the making. As planning continues, I ran across this article “Bowling deserves recognition as true sport.” The author makes a case for overhauling the reputation of bowling. Stats and figures in the article were provided by Answers.com.

Some other tidbits that Answers.com helped journalist with over the past couple of weeks:

The Easter Bunny: Did you know that in Australia

a campaign was launched to replace the Easter Bunny with the Easter Bilby?

Proxy Weddings: In Montana, neither you nor your spouse need be present at your own wedding: it can be done by proxy. This is popular for foreigners and service men stationed away. Know when else a proxy wedding is popular? When your spouse is incarcerated.

Rush Limbaugh: Bono, Larry and The Edge were first, but now Rush Limbaugh has his own signed iPod, too. What makes Rush rank with Apple marketers? The fact that he has 13.5 million listeners!

Brand News

Columnist Bernie Delinski was pondering semantics when a reader posed the question whether the term “brand-new” was redundant. For if something is new, why does it need a qualifier in front of it? Is it then newer than new? Mr. Delinski turned to Answers.com to see how the site defined the term. He also checked out an alternate spelling, “bran-new,” which reminds me of a fiber cereal, but actually is an alternate spelling of the same term found in Webster’s 1913 Dictionary. With some further investigation, Delinski found that spelling was used in 1700s and 1800s literature, including the description of a "bran-new Barlow knife" in Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn."

Speaking of brand-new, Answers.com’s first ever edition of its blogger newsletter went out last week. A mention was made by at least one blogger, BudiPetra, who said it has “smart” positioning as the

“very first blogger newsletter.”

Aspirin. As I get older, my fondness for these small white pills grows. Now, new studies show that these old pain killers are not only good for headaches, but also help prevent several diseases connected to aging, especially heart disease. A recent study that appeared in Bloomberg reinforced these findings, particularly for women. So what’s the potent ingredient in aspirin?

It’s salicylic acid, which according to Answers.com, is found in the inner bark of white willow, a large tree found in Europe, Asia and North America.

The author behind Sarasota Web Design has admittedly been trying to find an alternative to search engines. In his quest, he tried Brainboost and Answers.com. He says, “I’ve been using both and have been pretty impressed with the results.”

The Long March

For teachers and students, March is one of the most dreaded months on the calendar. People in the "time is money" corporate world might take issue with their complaint, but for those in education (except at universities) March means an endless month of five-day work weeks: no mid-winter or spring break weeks, not even a long holiday weekend to look forward to.

Yet, as a member of the corporate citizenship, in a marketing role no less, I have to bring a whole new outlook to events that dot my calendar: What’s the next big date to talk up? While March ranks low compared to other months like December, there are a few standouts that make this month newsworthy. Take St. Patrick’s Day, the vernal equinox and let’s not forget March Madness.

A stretch? Perhaps, but Answers.com did garner some press mentions for the events, nonetheless. The Carroll County Times and Detroit Free Press borrowed some St. Patty’s Day trivia from the answer engine, a blog pointed to Answers.com for info on spring, while the Charlotte Observer complimented the sports stats on the college basketball AnswerPage.

Speaking of compliments, Brainboost received one from Indy Star reporter Erika Smith. She tells readers to stop by the next time they have a nagging “Why” question.

OK — here’s two I’ve been wondering about lately: Why doesn’t big business take spring break? And why is the Atlantic 10 conference so bad?

Check and double check, all at Answers.com

We’ve all heard the cautionary tales that Wikipedia isn’t as accurate as some would have you believe. Scores of people abuse the openness of the system to insert their bias, promote false claims or just exact revenge.

Tom Taulli, a Wikipedia user, understands these pitfalls, and offers a solution: check your results against Answers.com. In a blog post called “Wikipedia’s false promise,” Taulli states:

“I always double-check things. For example, a good source for this is Answers.com, which licenses its content from well-established content sources.”

Let’s just chalk this up to better late than never: NYMag just picked up on the fact that the NYTimes website has AnswerTips capability. The author, Tayt Harlin, crows about the simplicity of the feature, but can’t understand why more people don’t know about this service (we don’t either). Must be why this was filed under the headline, “Point, Click and Tell No One.”

Did you know that March is Caffeine Awareness Month? Unfortunately, it is not an event Starbucks will be celebrating. It’s more of a crusade to raise awareness against the dangers of everyone’s favorite morning upper. Gary Puleo protested by touting some of the benefits of caffeine: it’s been shown to protect against Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and cell damage in some studies, and contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t cause high blood pressure. One thing that caffeine can’t do: cure a hangover. That tip came courtesy of Answers.com.

Need to decode some geek speak? Figure out just exactly what is comfort food? Why you’re being charged VAT? Or whether your second cousin is technically your third cousin? One place gets journalists the answers to these questions and more … Answers.com.

Lists, American Idol and TCEA Fans

WikiAnswers and AnswerTips continue to garner press a week after their initial coming-out. Barbara Quint wrote a piece early in the week on both features in a piece for InfoToday. The article highlights some of the positive feedback the tool has received, as well as some of the questions tools like AnswerTips raise for blog publishers.

Answers.com also made the cut on a couple of lists this week. In the Pensacola Journal, reporter Kate Peabody made a roundup of five hot sites on the web. Answers.com was listed second with this description:

Want fast facts? This free Internet site has it all. If you've got the questions, they'll most likely have the answers. Not only can you get help on topics such as health, technology and business, the site is user-friendly and a great resource tool for school work. I've used it about a dozen times to help my son with his homework and special projects

Then, Answers.com made an appearance on a list of 27 favorite Firefox add-ons.

Something to keep your eye on … hakia, a search engine, recently announced that it created an American Idol Search Guide. Putting your opinion of the singing reality show aside, it is interesting to note that in the press release hakia compared their service to that of Wikipedia. The company says:

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Unlike Wikipedia or Answers.com, hakia Galleries(TM) presents pure Web search results which are neither edited by hakia, nor by the visitors.”

After visiting the site, I can see this search engine differentiates itself by categorizing, but it still just looks like links to me.

After attending the TCEA trade show, one attendee decided to post a blog about a couple of interesting companies exhibiting: Google and Answers.com. The blogger notes that comparatively one company is a “giant” and the other “a flea,” but sometimes bigger isn’t always better.