Yahoo Ready to Answer Your Questions

Online portal announces the general launch of Yahoo Answers, a community based service which lets users ask and answer topical questions of others.

Yahoo today took the beta off of their new online community where people can ask and answer questions on any topic – over 10 million of which have already been asked since December. Yahoo Answers is now generally available to improve web searches in Australia, Canada, India, the UK and the US, with Spain, Germany and France coming soon. Yahoo Knowledge Search, a Yahoo! Answers-type product, is available in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

Yahoo Answers, the online portal said, allows users to turn to one another to ask questions and receive answers on any given topic. To try and encourage quality and relevant answers, and to encourage participation, Yahoo has built into its Answers product a system of points and levels which rewards users depending upon their level of engagement as well as how others rate that person’s reputation and knowledge.

Other features of Yahoo Answers include a search-ahead function which tries to anticipate what someone is typing so it can display exact or similar questions, a listing of the top answerers by category and RSS feeds sorted by category, subcategory and the entire site.

“The integration of Yahoo Answers with Web search demonstrates the Yahoo Search vision to enrich people’s lives by enabling them to find, use, share and expand all human knowledge,” said Eckart Walther, vice president of products at Yahoo Search. “Yahoo is providing a better search experience by making it easier for people to tap into the collective knowledge of others online for everyday questions.”