Harnessing Collective Intelligence

Yahoo! Answers

This website is an online community for anyone looking to Ask, Answer and/or Discover questions on any topic. It is a clear example of a Web 2.0 new generation websites and Harnessing Collective Intelligence as changes and improves as more people use it.

This service is completely free. However in order to Ask or Answer a question the user will need an email account with Yahoo; this is not needed at the time of browsing or ‘Discover’ around the questions that already been answered, which anyone can do. At the time of creating a question, the user has the option of adding extra information or details, which being more specific can help him/her to get the answer needed (which is a feature that was not there at the time Yahoo! Answers first started). The same users has to categorized the question with more than twenty categories to choose from, which choosing the right category can help others find your question.

The other part of Yahoo! Answer is the where a registered user can Answer, contribute or complement any answer. The user just has to select one category and the questions relating to it will show where a simple click gives the option to answer the question. A user is not limited by just one post per question. However the website has guidelines and if anyone spamming, using bad language or making offensive remarks to any group of people may be at risk for review and possible termination of their Yahoo! Answers account.

Yahoo Answers encourage its users to answer giving points each time you post an answer and even more points when your answer is selected as ‘best answer’ in order to motivate or encourage users to give good quality information. Unlike a message board, where a thread of messages can continue indefinitely without ever getting resolved, the questions in Yahoo Answers are resolved when a best answer is picked.

A simple query in Google can easily be directed to a question in Yahoo! Answers (which does not require to be a registered user in order to see the question or the answer). The range of questions varies because everyone has life experience and knowledge about something, and Yahoo! Answers provides a way for people to share their experience and insight. A simple question about friendship or a technical question about setting up a router can be found in it. 

In conclusion Yahoo! Answers is a website that has changed a lot since was first started. In my opinion the job of a Web 2.0 website is never over as it always have to change and evolve to suit to the changes required by its users, like for example: connectivity to sites like Facebook and Twitter, introducing new tools so its users have all they need in the website.