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.