Add Answers.com to the Business 101 Books

Snakes on a Plane is a case study of word of mouth advertising; the Aeron Chair is a case study for status branding; and Answers.com is a case study towards profitability through Google’s AdSense, so says Rick Aristotle Munarriz in The Motley Fool:

In its original form as GuruNet, the company would charge visitors for access to its database of reference material. It was a model doomed for extinction, especially with the growing popularity of free community-driven offerings such as Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers.

In January of 2005, Answers.com found religion. In other words, it found Google. It decided to transform itself into a free site and populate its millions of high-ranking content pages with Google AdSense ads. The makeover has been remarkable.

Quarter	Revenue Per 1,000 Queries
Q1 2005	$1.32
Q2 2005	$2.20
Q3 2005	$3.07
Q4 2005	$4.18
Q1 2006	$4.67
Q2 2006	$5.95
Q3 2006	$6.45

The article goes on to say that while Answers.com is not profitable yet, the company is on track to hit that milestone soon.

Talk about hitting ... Tigger and a tween recently had a tangle at the Orlando theme park, Disney. So what does that have to do with us? Seems Tallahassee.com brought Answers.com into the fray when they spotted some damning information on that brawling, bouncing buddy of Poo. According to “The New Adventures of Winnie The Pooh,” AnswersPage, Tigger has an alter-ego known as the "Masked Offender."

Following the president’s announcement that he will deploy more troops to Iraq, many bloggers got online to do some serious Bush bashing. Dada’s Dally believes more people would get behind the president if his decisions were made with the help of a Magic 8-Ball, rather than … well, no one knows who is really helping Bush with his decision-making, considering he brushes aside the wisdom from his advisors, senators and even panels. No matter, with the Magic 8-Ball, Bush will have 20 hard-to-disagree-with responses that he could use anytime from now to 2008. (See list of possible responses here).

I’m not quite sure how Answers.com got a mention in a blog waxing nostalgic for Nintendo’s NES system, the Apple Newton or $1 tolls to cross the Bay Bridge. Yet, Answers.com is there, on Raphael Ebron’s blog, noted as a company that has the right strategy.

The Daily Novel was also doing some reminiscing, remembering the day when journalists were professionals with accredited degrees. Nowadays, though, breaking news is happening on blogs. The tools that make that possible? Among many, the power of authoritative facts brought to you by Answers.com makes it possible.

blufr

World Tech Logic this week sung the praises of the simple yet addictive trivia game, blufr. Star New Grroup stopped short of calling it a brilliant marketing play from Answers.com.