14 DAY TRIAL // Google Answers, the service that was shut down in November 2006, is brought back to life in Russia after the Mountain View company decided to roll out the product only for this country. As you might have heard, the search giant announced the closure of Google Answers in November and permanently closed it in December but the archives remained available for all users. Tony Ruscoe from Google Blogoscoped discovered that a Google Russian blog announced the debut of a similar service powered by the Mountain View company that offers almost the same functions as the old Answers product.
"Nowhere does the announcement mention paying for answers, which was the basis for the old Google Answers site. Instead, it's free to ask questions, like at Yahoo! Answers. However, when asking a question, you must specify how many points you wish to spend on asking the question - and you must have these points available. Presumably, these points then get awarded to the best answer. (I got 100 points just for signing up and could gain more by answering questions.)", he said.
The similarity with Yahoo Answers (free service based on the same idea), might represent a sign that the Mountain View company wants to release a global version of the product able to compete with the Sunnyvale company's solution.
In the past, the local versions of Google such as those for China and Korea, were tested by the Mountain View company in order to see if the product can conquer the market and attract a considerable number of users.
At this time, Yahoo Answers is almost the only product in its category, being based on a huge community of users that are continuously contributing to the development process of the product. The things might be changed soon because Google seems interested in this market and plans to release a similar service with the same features.