Productivity Portfolio

We've used various answer forums before such as Google Answers. One disadvantage to this service is there are fees unless your question has been answered. In contrast Yahoo! Answers allows you to post questions without a monetary fee. You pay in points which are debited or credited based on your activity.

The rules to using the service are fairly standard. The primary one is you need to have a Yahoo! account. When you sign up to use the service you are given 100 points. The point balance is used to ask questions and each one will set you back 5 points. The good news is that you get 2 points for answering other people's questions. If your answer is selected as the best, you're awarded 10 points. This last part encourages people to be thorough and adds a bit of competition.

Posting a Question on Yahoo! Answers

The service provides an easy method to post your question and directs much of the process by using a form. This helps categorize questions so they are easier to find and answer.

1. Sign into your Yahoo! account

2. Go to http://answers.yahoo.com/

3. Click the Post Question button in the Ask section.

4. Fill out the question form which is laid out into 5 sections. The numbers below map to the numbers on the screen capture.

Account status (1) - under the Ask Your Question heading you'll see how many points you have and the number of questions you have left for today.

Enter your question (2) " this area is for entering your questions. The question must be longer than 10 characters, but not more than 110 characters. This is the line that other users will see on the main page or if they drill down to an area. If your question is generic or unclear, you're less apt to have someone answer.

Similar questions (3) " as you start typing your questions, Yahoo! Answers tries to match it against similar questions. This saves you from spending points on a question that may be similar to yours.

Add details (4) " this is an expanded area to put more information about your question.

Categories (5) " this section assigns your question a specific area. As you click on a section on the left panel, a series of sub groupings appears in the middle. Some sub categories have more levels which show a -> after the title. An example of this is Hardware which shows in the screen snap below.

Click to enlarge

5. Click the Check Spelling link above your question

6. Click the Preview button

7. Click the Submit button.

The Best Questions and Answers

It's interesting to see the type of questions people ask. There are 23 predefined categories with other sub-levels. The questions aren't too different from what you might overhear in a public place. Here's a small sampling from the Computers and Internet Category:

• How do I forward my email address?
• How do I auto fill an Excel spreadsheet from a master table?
• How do I make a music video?
• What's a good anti-virus program?

After viewing the questions for a bit you do see patterns. You start filtering the noise as you would with any data sampling. The questions that have the best answers are ones where people started with a detailed question. This is apparent in the computer topics where some people simply say they can't get their email. They don't give enough information such as which email program or if an error message appeared. Some people are courteous and say more info is needed. Sometimes you'll see the same person repost later with more details.

Posing a question on Yahoo! Answers is similar to asking a question in a large public place. You get all sorts of answers. These range from very informative to perplexing. In my example, I asked a question about resources for learning PHP. Within 5 minutes of posting my question, I had a response. The response was interesting as it referenced Tagalog CDs. Since the poster didn't provide a link, I would have to go back to a search engine and find more details on these CDs. I'm guessing someone didn't read the category correctly and thought I wanted to learn the language spoken in the Philippines.

Keeping Score

Another distinction the service offers is a game like quality. Although it's not Jeopardy!, it's easy to look at the questions and say ?I know that one?. You don't even have to worry about answering first. Before long, you're typing the answer. After that, you start thinking about how many more questions you need to answer before being promoted to the next level.

Yahoo Answers combines curiosity and competitiveness to create a fun way to exchange information. The questions and answers aren't as refined as Google Answers, but the barrier to entry is removed. It has been replaced with a community that offers a wide array of advice. The community votes which answer is best. While Yahoo! Answers may not always be right, it is entertaining. It all starts with asking a good question.