blending the mix

If the way you can ask ask.com a question and find what you need appeals to you, then Yahoo Answers takes this one step further!

Ask a question and you get a human answer! Click ALL thumbnails to enlarge.
Step 1: Ask the question and select a category (select from Internet, Sports, Politics etc.).

Step 2: Check your question and Submit

Job done!

You then receive an email confirming you have asked a question and are instructed to click on the Q&A page link to see what responses you have had.

Alternatively, you can activate email notification of responses.

The link takes you to the Q&A page of your question where the responses have been posted. Whichever of the posts answers your question, simply indicate by pressing the Best Answer button.

Your question is open for 7 days so you can wait until then to get the answer which most helps.

Points are awarded for your usefulness to the community. You start off with 100 points and gain or lose as follows:

-5 points for asking a question

+2 points for answering a question

+10 points if your answer is selected as the Best Answer

+1 for daily login

All questions are answered by the community members, earning points for simply logging-in ensuring that the community grows by incentivising participation.

as fun as this is, what purpose does it serve? What can people hope to learn from Yahho Answers that they wouldn’t already be able to get from a Yahoo or Google search?

How popular is Google Answers? Does the fact that Yahoo is free open it up to more answers or more abuse?

I LOVE the idea of the open community prioviding answers, almost like wikipedia but the large youth base of Yahoo makes me think it will be open to the type of abuse that wikipedia avoids.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo Answers, Google Answers, Yahoo, wikipedia