Google has closed their “Google Answers” program. It allowed people to submit questions for a fee, and qualified experts could answer them. The service was created to rival a similar site created by Yahoo, and was one of the first non search projects for Google.
Google says that they will stop accepting questions later this week, but they will keep the current set of questions and answers archived online.
It was an idea started by Larry Page, a Google founder. Users could submit the question with a price tag that ranged from $2 to $200. Then a group of 500 experts hand picked by Google could browse through the questions and answer them. If the answer was accepted they would receive a portion of the payment.
Too bad this idea did not work out for Google. I have found answers to tough computer and programming problems more than a few times in the archived answers area.
Looks like the pressure from free services at Yahoo, and now Microsoft with their MS Live Q & A were too much for this to be a success.
The only official explanation from Google was in this published statement: “Google is a company fueled by innovation, which to us means trying lots of new things all the time–and sometimes it means reconsidering our goals for a product”