zyzzyva57
11-30-2006, 04:46 PM
From the WSJ 30Nov06
Google Inc. decided to abandon a four-year-old service that hired researchers to field questions on anything from school homework to sports trivia. The retreat, announced in a notice on Google's Web site, is a rare victory for rival Yahoo Inc. and may also signal Google's intention to refocus on its core search engine, which generates virtually all its profits. While the Mountain View, Calif., company still holds a large lead over Yahoo in basic Internet search, Yahoo appears to have outsmarted Google with a free online answer service. In its first 11 months, Yahoo's service has accumulated about 160 million answers, said the Sunnyvale, Calif., company. Google didn't elaborate on the reasons for dropping its service, which will stop accepting questions this week.
Google Inc. decided to abandon a four-year-old service that hired researchers to field questions on anything from school homework to sports trivia. The retreat, announced in a notice on Google's Web site, is a rare victory for rival Yahoo Inc. and may also signal Google's intention to refocus on its core search engine, which generates virtually all its profits. While the Mountain View, Calif., company still holds a large lead over Yahoo in basic Internet search, Yahoo appears to have outsmarted Google with a free online answer service. In its first 11 months, Yahoo's service has accumulated about 160 million answers, said the Sunnyvale, Calif., company. Google didn't elaborate on the reasons for dropping its service, which will stop accepting questions this week.