LiveSide - News blog

beating google, in fact didn;t googles versionb shut down

Yep, Google Answers shut down pretty recently actually.

Ususal story: they need to do something new to make it succeed. A good start would be to solve the pointless questions that occur so much on there.

Another thing Y! Answers has over WL QnA is that Y! actually organises the questions into categories. In WL QnA you just have a big jumbled mess of tags that make little sense.

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm not a great fan of user-created tags; you just end up with a mess which noone understands. Best leaving them to one person/team so that there's some control and logic to them.

The Yahoo! Answers is in first place because when some usuary of the Yahoo Mail enters in its email paraece a question and one link of the Yahoo! Answers, in the version in Portuguese of Brazil is thus.

In the same way the Windows Live QnA must make the same, placing links of the services in the entrance of the sites of the Hotmail, MSN, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Spaces, MSN SOApBox, Microsoft and other sites partners.

It is not alone to make this in the version in English, but in all. Despite that I find that the Windows Live QnA alone has in the English language.

Of this form yes it will be able to go for the first position of the Ranked.

Everyday I see something advertising Yahoo! on TV, magazine, newspaper, or web site ad  and I rarely, if  ever see anything Windows Live let alone QnA.  Also, Microsof's product naming has always been sub-par.  This is just another reason why Yahoo! is ahead of the game on with Answers.  In conversation, which sounds better:  Hey, why don't you check out Yahoo! Answers to see if you can get an answer to your questions.  Or:  Hey, why don't you try Windows Live QnA, blah blah blah.  The person is going ask you what the hell is Windows Live QnA.  Until Microsoft can get better at marketing their products, they will always lag behind their competiotrs in these areas.  IMHO.

Brian agreed. I've seen lots of Yahoo Answers advertising here in the UK, almost none for Windows Live. In fact the only WL advertising here has been for search.

And lets not get started on the naming, that is a long and slippery slope leading down to MSN v WL :P

Accross Windows Live, MS tends to do fine on the tech side but miserably on the marketing side. That's their biggest problem right now, I think. Branding and visibility.

I think using tags instead of categories is fine, but they should list major tags - y'know, Arts, Business, Computers, Education, Entertainment, Food, Games, Home, Politics, Science, Sports, Travel - along the left nav bar at all times. Then they get the best of both worlds. :)

Also, they should reward superstars with Microsoft Points. That'd definitely give them a boost.

one thing i don't get; why don't they integrate it with windows live alerts! or even window live mail

because once i put up a post and forgot about it then i remembered couple of days later (silly me)