Yahoo! Inc.'s (YHOO) successful launch in Social Search has surprised many. Adding to the buzz of Yahoo Answers lately is the renowned Physicist Stephen Hawking. Two weeks ago Stephen Hawking asked a question about the survival of human race and got 24000 responses (at the time of writing this post):
How can the human race survive the next hundred years? In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?
The power of Social Search is in the quality of participants. It is exciting to see that a leading Theoritical Physicist (Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post held once by Isaac Newton) believes in the power of Social Search. It is however not surprising. Someone who simplified for lay readers the understanding of the formation of the Universe, could rightly be interested in the wisdom of the crowds.
Yahoo Answers meanwhile has gone global with a presence in 12 countries besides US.
Google (GOOG) also has an Answers product but here getting answers from 500 "carefully selected researchers" cost a minimum of US $ 2.50.
Yahoo Answers is free for participants. The participatory success of Yahoo Answers is thus a validation of its free model. What needs to be further done is a better filtering mechanism to get high quality answers and capture the mood of the person asking the question. Example: What is death? Mood could be philosophical or sad depending upon what is the experience of the individual asking the question.
