What does it take for a company to have a paid Q&A site become a success?

Jan ?

It?s a good question and I hope that you analyze aspects of it on the
Google Blogoscoped website:
http://blog.outer-court.com/

There are several aspects to answering it.  I?m only going to attempt
to answer one here ? the last one.

*  How you get scale?  Only Google Answers and Yahoo! Answers have
managed to get tens of thousands of readers in order to enable
hundreds of questions per day.  And deliver content reliably.

*  How do you segment the market?  The Google Answers service has
provided almost 70,000 answers to questions ranging from math homework
to market research.  The most-interesting have been answers with
original research and some excellent essays ? but that?s not where the
money is.

*  What did Google Answers do right?

I?ll tackle the last one and am sure that other researchers will jump in.

1.  Google charged for the service.  Doing so builds a contractual
bond between the customer and the researcher that is the ultimate
assurance of quality.  Questions are often vague or poorly stated. 
I?ll use only one recent example, where the question went from:
-- interest rate histories for major economies for 2 years to 
   -- what were the central bank interest rates for 2 years to
       -- what were the federal funds overnight rights for 2 years

Interest Rates History
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=784664

Had it been a free service, the researcher would have been unlikely to
have clarified the question; spent two hours to answer the question;
then devoted additional amount of time to find the difference between
the ?federal funds? rates and the ?overnight primary credit rate? for
each of the six countries -- especially as the two are tightly linked
in all of the major industrial economies.

The "clarification" loop is very common, probably involving 20% of all
questions and 10% of all Answers.

2.	Google Answers editors selected researchers on their Internet
research skills.  It instills a minimum quality level.  Google was
lucky enough to get researchers from a broad range of professional
backgrounds.  Early editors were also smart enough to get a good range
of international researchers, so that the service would be more
representative and be a true 24x7 resource.

3.	There are standards for Answers, including complete source
citations; the Google search summary at the end; and a neutral tone.

As with any school research paper, there are citation minima that an
online Q&A service should deliver.  One of the biggest complaints
about Wikipedia, another excellent online ?answer? service, is the
lack of citations for factual statements.

4.	Researchers could communicate with each other, often adding bits
and pieces to difficult questions.  In one case, I had the pleasure of
putting an academic paper into plain English and Scriptor-GA
translated it into German for a customer.

In another case, a customer had posted a dozen questions about where
Merck, Pfizer and other companies had their pharmaceutical factories. 
Once a researcher pointed out that the information was in the Form 10K
(annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission) the 12
questions were quickly answered.

5.	The service has to have an editor for quality standards.  Anyone
who has been involved with moderated vs. unmoderated forums knows that
spam shows up and the more successful the forum the more likely it
will be spammed.

But the editors have a quality function as well and even the best
researchers will miss the intent of a question occasionally, making it
necessary to remove answers or correct them.

An active editor for a service should also be a product manager,
promoting the service to relevant audiences but now I?m getting beyond
the scope of ?what Google did right? with GA.

Thanks for having me answer it.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

Great imagination but I'm sure that it can be done.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I'm looking forward to the article already!

Jan ?

It?s a good question and I hope that you analyze aspects of it on the
Google Blogoscoped website:
http://blog.outer-court.com/

There are several aspects to answering it.  I?m only going to attempt
to answer one here ? the last one.

*  How you get scale?  Only Google Answers and Yahoo! Answers have
managed to get tens of thousands of readers in order to enable
hundreds of questions per day.  And deliver content reliably.

*  How do you segment the market?  The Google Answers service has
provided almost 70,000 answers to questions ranging from math homework
to market research.  The most-interesting have been answers with
original research and some excellent essays ? but that?s not where the
money is.

*  What did Google Answers do right?

I?ll tackle the last one and am sure that other researchers will jump in.

1.  Google charged for the service.  Doing so builds a contractual
bond between the customer and the researcher that is the ultimate
assurance of quality.  Questions are often vague or poorly stated. 
I?ll use only one recent example, where the question went from:
-- interest rate histories for major economies for 2 years to 
   -- what were the central bank interest rates for 2 years to
       -- what were the federal funds overnight rights for 2 years

Interest Rates History
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=784664

Had it been a free service, the researcher would have been unlikely to
have clarified the question; spent two hours to answer the question;
then devoted additional amount of time to find the difference between
the ?federal funds? rates and the ?overnight primary credit rate? for
each of the six countries -- especially as the two are tightly linked
in all of the major industrial economies.

The "clarification" loop is very common, probably involving 20% of all
questions and 10% of all Answers.

2.	Google Answers editors selected researchers on their Internet
research skills.  It instills a minimum quality level.  Google was
lucky enough to get researchers from a broad range of professional
backgrounds.  Early editors were also smart enough to get a good range
of international researchers, so that the service would be more
representative and be a true 24x7 resource.

3.	There are standards for Answers, including complete source
citations; the Google search summary at the end; and a neutral tone.

As with any school research paper, there are citation minima that an
online Q&A service should deliver.  One of the biggest complaints
about Wikipedia, another excellent online ?answer? service, is the
lack of citations for factual statements.

4.	Researchers could communicate with each other, often adding bits
and pieces to difficult questions.  In one case, I had the pleasure of
putting an academic paper into plain English and Scriptor-GA
translated it into German for a customer.

In another case, a customer had posted a dozen questions about where
Merck, Pfizer and other companies had their pharmaceutical factories. 
Once a researcher pointed out that the information was in the Form 10K
(annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission) the 12
questions were quickly answered.

5.	The service has to have an editor for quality standards.  Anyone
who has been involved with moderated vs. unmoderated forums knows that
spam shows up and the more successful the forum the more likely it
will be spammed.

But the editors have a quality function as well and even the best
researchers will miss the intent of a question occasionally, making it
necessary to remove answers or correct them.

An active editor for a service should also be a product manager,
promoting the service to relevant audiences but now I?m getting beyond
the scope of ?what Google did right? with GA.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

Thanks Omnivorous. Feel free to post this as answer.

What kind of success are you thinking of?

A paid Q&A site is a success if it is profitable, if the income from
customers and advertisements exceeds the researcher payments and all
the other costs of running the site.

A paid Q&A site could also be considered a success if it supports some
other goal of its owners. For example, Google Answers generally
created good PR for Google. It was usually rated top in articles that
compared Q&A services, and it gave Google the "high ground" compared
to the free Q&A sites.

A paid Q&A site could be considered a success if it provided a useful
service. Google Answers has helped thousands of people with their
finances, love life, career goals, health concerns, and many other
aspects of their lives.

But a paid Q&A site cannot be considered a success if it is not operating.

Regards,
eiffel-ga