Yahoo! has announced the general availability of Yahoo! Answers, an online community where people can ask and answers questions on any topic.

With an index of human knowledge that has grown to more than 10 million answers since its beta launch in December 2005, Yahoo! Search is integrating user insight from Yahoo! Answers into Web search to make it more comprehensive and useful.

Yahoo! Answers is available today in Australia, Canada, India, the UK and the US, with Spain, Germany and France coming soon. Additionally, Yahoo! Knowledge Search, a Yahoo! Answers-type product, is available in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

“The integration of Yahoo! Answers with Web search demonstrates the Yahoo! Search vision to enrich people’s lives by enabling them to find, use, share and expand all human knowledge,” said Eckart Walther, vice president of products at Yahoo! Search. “Yahoo! is providing a better search experience by making it easier for people to tap into the collective knowledge of others online for everyday questions.”

Yahoo! Search users can now search the Web in everyday language and view relevant information from Yahoo! Answers in their search results and via a Yahoo! Shortcut. For example, searching “What’s the best dog for an apartment?” will result in several links to resolved questions from Yahoo! Answers on the same topic. Search “Advice on Canon camera” and below the search results, users will find a Yahoo! Shortcut with a link to all search results in Yahoo! Answers on Canon cameras and links to several resolved questions.

To encourage participation and reward quality and relevant answers, Yahoo! Answers has a system of points and levels. The number of points users are rewarded depends on their participation level. Yahoo! Answers users who are regularly voted as providing the “best answer” can build a reputation within the community as a trusted source for information on specific topics. As a user attains higher point levels, they can ask, answer, vote, and rate more frequently.

Other key new features to Yahoo! Answers since its beta launch include:

- Search Ahead: When users type in their question, Yahoo! Answers searches ahead by keyword/question phrasing and displays exact or similar questions just below. Users can view those questions to see if they have already found their answer before posting their question.

- Category Top Answerers: When users click into a Yahoo! Answers top-level category, they see the category’s “top answerer,” or user with the most “best answers” in that category. They can also click the “top 10 answerers” link to see the top ten people with the most “best answers.”

- RSS feeds: Yahoo! Answers users can display the latest questions in a category, subcategory, even the entire site, as well as keep track of their favourite questions on their My Yahoo! and Yahoo! 360 pages.

- Yahoo! Product Integration: Yahoo! Answers is integrated with other leading Yahoo! products, including My Yahoo!, Yahoo! Tech, Yahoo! 360, Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger to allow users to connect and share real life experiences and advice with others that share similar interests.

Other product features coming soon include a new ratings and reputation system that will reward high-quality questions and answers. Users will be able to rate all questions and answers, and these ratings will be used to identify the best content, as well as recognize users who consistently post quality content.

Yahoo! Answers can be found at .

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BIOS, May 15, 06 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Internet