Quantcast LiveSide - Windows Live news and interviews
LiveSide on the Windows Live Network LiveSide on Facebook LiveSide on Twitter LiveSide RSS  
Translate this page
MoFuse
LiveSide - News blog

QnA 3rd (but far behind) in US Market Share: Hitwise

Hitwise Research Director Leann Prescott has posted the first real stats we've seen on question and answer site market share, and although Windows Live QnA is in third place, Yahoo! Answers is far ahead in the race with 96.1% US Market share.

While the blog entry does not detail what this means in terms of actual numbers, it's clear that QnA has a lot of ground to make up.  We'll be watching how these numbers evolve.

Comments

rhann wrote re: QnA 3rd (but far behind) in US Market Share: Hitwise
on 12-29-2006 6:45 AM

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

Harrison Hoffman wrote re: QnA 3rd (but far behind) in US Market Share: Hitwise
on 12-29-2006 8:31 AM

Yep, Google Answers shut down pretty recently actually.

kenbw2 wrote re: QnA 3rd (but far behind) in US Market Share: Hitwise
on 12-29-2006 10:33 AM

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.

bf1977 wrote re: QnA 3rd (but far behind) in US Market Share: Hitwise
on 12-29-2006 1:13 PM

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.

brianm76 wrote re: QnA 3rd (but far behind) in US Market Share: Hitwise
on 12-29-2006 1:41 PM

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.

Chris wrote re: QnA 3rd (but far behind) in US Market Share: Hitwise
on 12-29-2006 7:26 PM

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

tophtucker wrote re: QnA 3rd (but far behind) in US Market Share: Hitwise
on 12-30-2006 6:06 AM

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.

LiveSide - News blog wrote Windows Live: Where it started, where we've been, and where we are now
on 12-31-2006 9:18 PM

Well, it's that time of the year again. It's the time where everyone does their predictions for the new year and recap of the events of the year that is on its way out. Kip is going to be covering our list of things to watch for in 2007 and that means

LiveSide - News blog wrote Windows Live: Where it started, where we've been, and where we are now
on 12-31-2006 9:18 PM

Well, it's that time of the year again. It's the time where everyone does their predictions for the new year and recap of the events of the year that is on its way out. Kip is going to be covering our list of things to watch for in 2007 and that means

BV2312 wrote re: QnA 3rd (but far behind) in US Market Share: Hitwise
on 01-01-2007 11:18 PM

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)

Sign In Live ID using Live ID, Name/Password, or OpenID
or Join LiveSide to leave a comment!