Yahoo Answers Launches : User Powered Social Media

By definition, Yahoo Answers is truly user-powered media at its finest.

Jeremy Zawodny has announced a new Yahoo Search service on the YSearchBlog, Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers at first glance seems to be a Yahoo user community where one can ask questions and have them answered by other Yahoo’ers or Yahoo staff. On Yahoo Answers users can ask a question on any topic and real people will post an answer to that question. The service is a good fit for Yahoo, which prides itself on its registered member base and user generated content (like Yahoo User Reviews).

Yahoo Answers also has all of the buzzes and whistles of a Yahoo Social Media product, with add to My Yahoo buttons, RSS, Yahoo Member Photos and Avatars, and Q&A categories. There seems to not be any tie ins to Yahoo Local, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Messenger or Yahoo 360 as of yet, but don’t be surprised if Jeremy & the Yahoo 2.0 crew figure out some way to tie all of these Social Media offerings together (think Yelp).

Yes, unlike some search engines, Yahoo does have a master plan for its Social Media & Search offerings (Yahoo Search Pyramid). It should also be noted that Google Answers, also offering user powered question answering, has been available for quite some time. [Read the rest]