Windows Live QnA announced their Beta
Posted by Ashish on September 2nd, 2006
Is Windows Live QnA answer to Yahoo’s answers?
Nandini, a friend of mine working at Microsoft, informed me about the public Beta of Windows Live QnA. Microsoft has definitely been coming up with interesting applications with their Live suite of products and this is the latest addition. I tried it for a while and the interface looks pretty neat to me.
Apart from asking and answering questions, you can also vote for answers. They also have a concept of Superstars and you can become one if you are fairly active with questions, answers and votes. Here is a sample question:
I know that I will spend more time on the site in the coming days. I have already been warned that it’s pretty addictive and I am passing on the same warning to the readers of this blog.
September 4th, 2006 at 1:35 am
I might be a bit off context, but I wonder why these big corps spend so many resources in churning out “clones” of the same application. Is there nothing left to innovate?
My rant aside, the interface does look nice but again not sure why one should move from GoogAnswers or Y!Answers to MS QnA!!
-Nag
Startups.in/India
September 5th, 2006 at 12:25 am
Innovation is nothing but a fair solution to a problem or need. MS is approaching innovation from a different perspective - which is to protect and extend its market share on the Internet, hence there is no life in its Internet based products.
Microsoft is worried to create its mark on the Internet and hence its not able to think creatively. I feel MS should be its natural self, instead of getting intimidated by Google and Yahoo.
September 6th, 2006 at 12:08 am
The “natural self” of MS has always been good copying skills. MS is one company with really no real real technological innovation. However, they are extremely good at copying ideas and packaging them well with few other (obvious to the imagination) features as a product in their Operating system, thereby getting a free selling of their product.
September 6th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
I tried Yahoo Answers sone time back once but did not get any intelligent answer. Maybe will try again and see.
September 6th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
ur blogs keep me updated, love readin thm ,
n hey i left u wit sme b’day msg…. i guess ure not regular with orkut? neways Belated wishes …. hope u had a gr8 time …
September 10th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Not only MSFT - I think almost all big companies play catch-up. They have a long list of products to defend and they get bogged down by that rather than thinking about the innovation. To be fair to them, these are the companies who are also expected to build the entire eco-system and not just part of a eco-system. So they do have to create the existing products and more - but then they can also afford to do that.
September 11th, 2006 at 2:51 am
The leading company in the QnA business is Naver.com which is owned by NHN. They have been doing the same thing for 3 1/2 years. That’s one of the reasons why Google is getting nowhere in Korea (market share lower than 2% afak). Here’s an interesting article on them NHN: The Little Search Engine That Could.
November 13th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
……why one should move from GoogAnswers or Y!Answers to MS QnA!!
If some contributors here are regular visitors to ‘answers’ site like Google Answers, Yahoo Answers, MS QnA, I would suggest they take a look at www.g2bay.com/answers. You can make some money while trying to provide answers to the questions.
The site has an interesting concept of letting users make money with the information at their disposal. There are other modules too besides the ‘Answers’ module. Though the site still has not many users, it remains an interesting concept
March 9th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
wow, you have some realy kool reading material here would keep visiting you more often