Google Answers Closing Down: Here’s What to Do

Google announced yesterday the end of the year is the end of Google Answers, the pay-for-answers-about-absolutely-anything site that has been populated over the years by a total of 800 folks answering untold millions of questions. While Google states the site will stop accepting questions “later this week,” Google Answers will stop accepting answers “by the end of the year.” One issue that has been left unanswered is, what will all the financially compensated answerers do without a paying platform on which to share their knowledge and actually get paid for it?

While not listed as the reason for shuttering Google Answers, Yahoo! Answers - free to you and me - is a large community of folks who will answer most any question in a matter of minutes (your mileage may vary), though some of the answers reflect the diverse community that the free (read: ad-supported and traffic driven) site attracts. By example, this question, selected at random, received eight answers in its first eight minutes.

There are countless other “advice” sites, some free, some not. Some are individual “experts” available to answer your questions for a fee. Some are outgrowths of popular websites, which provide user/member “forums.” And some are simply search engines for previously asked questions (which is what will happen to the content on Google Answers), or FAQs.

The Dutch blog voelspriet has provided an excellent list of Q & A sites (via Digg.) refdesk’s Ask The Experts also has an extensive listing. Here are a few interesting others:

• NASA Quest Q&A search, “provides students in K-12 grades with the opportunity to ask questions and receive answers that relate to NASA science, math and technology content.”


• The Miami Herald’s Steve Rothaus writes on gay and lesbian issues, and answers readers specific questions. The site also is searchable for previous questions and answers.


• Experts.com, which acts as an intemediatery between “authors, consultants, engineers, physicians, professors, scientists” and the general public.


• The Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A, The University of Chicago Press’s repository of questions related to The Chicago Manual of Style. For example, a recent Q&A:
  

  “Q: Can you tell me the proper indentation for typing endnotes?”
  “A. Chicago authors are asked to type their notes just like regular text: double-spaced, with a half-inch indent for the first line of each paragraph. Please see CMOS 2.10–2.18 for more advice on typing manuscripts.”



• The Discovery Channel’s Forums offer a wide range of groups available for questions, answers, and discussion, on topics mostly related to their wide variety of TV shows, including “What Not to Wear,” “Koppel on Discovery,” and “Biker Build-Off.”


• My personal favorites, Ask MetaFilter, companion to Metafilter.com, and The New York Times’ The Ethicist, by Randy Cohen.

Please, share your favorite alternatives/ideas. Feel fee to comment!

(Please note that in no way do I personally recommend any of these sites, nor am I liable should your experience not be successful. As with anything, common sense should prevail.)

Another interesting point, rarely mentioned about any of these social information sites: the knowledge management opportunity, collectively or individually, of all the content living within their pages. I’ll leave that for now as food for thought.