14 DAY TRIAL // The brain child of Larry Page - one of Google's cofounders - is getting shut down. By the end of this week, Google Answers will no longer accept additional questions. "Google Answers taught us exactly how many tyrannosaurs are in a gallon of gasoline, why flies survive a good microwaving, and why you really shouldn't drink water emitted by your air conditioner. Even closer to home, we learned one afternoon that our building might be on fire," revealed Andrew Fikes and Lexi Baugher, Software Engineers.
The Mountain View Company gave no official explanation of why they are closing the shop with Google Answers. Instead, Fikes and Baugher stated that: "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."
Traffic might just be the answer. Google Answers never really caught on. In fact, it is lagging behind the rival Yahoo Answers. So far behind that, after over four years, Google Answers will accept its final question this week. "Later this week, we will stop accepting new questions in Google Answers, the very first project we worked on here. The project started with a rough idea from Larry Page, and a small 4-person team turned it into reality in less than 4 months. For two new grads, it was a crash course in building a scalable product, responding to customer requests, and discovering what questions are on people's minds," added Fikes and Baugher.
At the present moment, there still are in excess of 500 screened Researchers ready to answer any question for prices starting at $2.50 in less than a day. In the four years while the service was alive, it accounted for over 800 participants.