10e20 Blog

“Over 800″ Google Answers participants (though not 1,000) probably explains Google’s decision to shut the service down. Google Answers was simply never as popular as Yahoo! Answers, which has more than 50 times the market share.

Why did Google fail? I took a look at the two services and came away with my own opinions.

• Google says it themselves: 800 is a small number. And they claim that this was the community that existed on Google Answers “over the last 4+ years.”
• Google charged you to ask a question. Ironic, isn’t it, coming from the world’s largest and wealthiest search engine.
• It was so web 1.0. Yahoo’s success is largely in its community aspect and its friendly and welcoming interface. Google Answers just didn’t have that element. Most people answered for the money, not for the community. And the Courier font that I see on my browser is totally unflattering.

Interestingly enough, Google’s small community of paid “researchers” are already trying to reverse the company’s decision. Maybe Google Answers was not a success overall, but in itself, it was useful to those 84 individuals (and counting) who signed the petition. I wonder when the 716+ others will sign up.

The closure of the Google Answers system still indicates that Yahoo is pulling ahead with social media guiding its way. With its continuous acquisitions of additional social media sites, it will be interesting to see who fares better in the world of online communities.