[OPLIN 4cast] OPLIN 4cast#189: Online Q&A

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    OPLIN 4Cast #189: Online Q&A
    <http://www.oplin.org/4cast/index.php/?p=1285>

Q&A <http://www.oplin.org/4cast/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/qa.gif>You 
probably saw last week's news about Facebook Questions 
<http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=411795942130>, but you might 
have missed the news that Ask.com <http://www.ask.com/> also decided 
last week to quit competing with Google as a general search engine and 
return to its Q&A roots. Sprinkled into these news articles were lots of 
mentions of other online Q&A sites. Will the library reference desk meet 
this challenge?

    * Facebook Questions officially launches
      <http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/facebook-questions/> (Mashable/Ben
      Parr) "Similar in concept to Yahoo! Answers
      <http://answers.yahoo.com/>, Quora <http://quora.com/> and Mahalo
      <http://www.mahalo.com/>, Facebook Questions gives users the
      opportunity to ask questions just by clicking the 'Ask Question'
      button on the homepage."
    * Facebook Q&A service could be massive
      <http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/28/facebook-qa-service-questions-begins-rolling-out-could-be-massive/>
      (TechCrunch/Jason Kincaid) "Facebook obviously isn't going to ask
      your question to everyone else on Facebook; instead, its system is
      going to try to analyze a user's interests to determine who would
      be best able to answer your question. The service will also show
      the question to some of your friends, so ideally you'll receive
      answers from a healthy mix of friends and experts (we'll see how
      well it actually works)."
    * Ask.com gets back to its roots
      <http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/askcom_launches_qa_question_and_answer_service.php>
      (ReadWriteWeb/Frederic Lardinois) "Ask.com is getting back to its
      heritage by launching a new question and answer service that mixes
      results from Ask.com's search engine with answers the company
      found on other Q&A sites and the ability to address questions to
      the Ask community directly. The end result feels a bit like a mix
      between Bing, Yahoo Answers, Quora and Aardvark <http://vark.com/>."
    * The new Q&A businesses
      <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704256304575321070429328364.html>
      (Wall Street Journal, June 22) "Their efforts illustrate the
      continual evolution of Web search, which is constantly adapting to
      new content. Once capable of spitting out links to websites,
      search engines now directly yield results like photos and videos
      and maps. Yet even search leaders like Google acknowledge Web
      search falls far short of its goal of delivering any answer to any
      question."

*/Ironic Fact:/*
The Quora online Q&A service was started by a group of early Facebook 
employees, including Facebook's first CTO.





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