Now defunct online-research community for pay
March 1, 2017 9:25 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for a now defunct online community of researchers. You could submit questions and a $ amount you were willing to pay for the answer. Somebody on the site would accept the question and work on it.. upon reading the answer the asker would unlock the payment.. I remember it being done by Amazon (?) but not under the main brand and it closing down 5 to 10 years ago. Most/all answers were public. My first objective would be to find this site/answer cache - and the second to find a successor?
It was a bit like ask-metafilter but with very specific questions "give me a list of 10 biotech companies currently working on graphene related technologies".. so things one wouldn't ask here because it's too niche/actually a to look around for the answer..
I would really like to find a successor to this community. I found askwonder.com which is similar - but a bit too corporate for my taste.
It was a bit like ask-metafilter but with very specific questions "give me a list of 10 biotech companies currently working on graphene related technologies".. so things one wouldn't ask here because it's too niche/actually a to look around for the answer..
I would really like to find a successor to this community. I found askwonder.com which is similar - but a bit too corporate for my taste.
Response by poster: That's it, and I wrecked my brain.
Would any of you have an idea where everybody went from Google Answers? Who's the successor in the crowdsourced online research of niche questions?
posted by mathiu at 9:35 AM on March 1, 2017
Would any of you have an idea where everybody went from Google Answers? Who's the successor in the crowdsourced online research of niche questions?
posted by mathiu at 9:35 AM on March 1, 2017
In a lot of ways, the successor is Mechanical Turk, run by Amazon.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 10:07 AM on March 1, 2017
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 10:07 AM on March 1, 2017
I was a Google Answers researcher, and I stayed in touch with a few of the other former researchers for a while, all of whom pretty much just went back to whatever we'd been doing before.
There were a couple-few researchers who made actual money doing it, but most just dropped in here and there and took questions as they felt like it. In my case, I just figured I spent a lot of my downtime looking up random stuff on the internet anyway, so GA would just provide me with ideas of what to look for and I could make a few dollars here and there while I was at it. But the way it was set up was just kind of crummy. People could post a $2 question and then ding the researchers if they didn't provide a $100 answer, some of the researchers would get a little too competitive, and it just never really figured out what it was supposed to be. There was a huge variation in the type and quality of questions and answers, and there was never any consistency about what was acceptable or appropriate, if that makes sense.
It was not a great model, so I don't think anyone has bothered trying to replicate it.
I'd guess maybe Stack Exchange might be the closest to what you're looking for if you just want communities where people answer questions (although it has its own problems as I understand it).
posted by ernielundquist at 11:32 AM on March 1, 2017
There were a couple-few researchers who made actual money doing it, but most just dropped in here and there and took questions as they felt like it. In my case, I just figured I spent a lot of my downtime looking up random stuff on the internet anyway, so GA would just provide me with ideas of what to look for and I could make a few dollars here and there while I was at it. But the way it was set up was just kind of crummy. People could post a $2 question and then ding the researchers if they didn't provide a $100 answer, some of the researchers would get a little too competitive, and it just never really figured out what it was supposed to be. There was a huge variation in the type and quality of questions and answers, and there was never any consistency about what was acceptable or appropriate, if that makes sense.
It was not a great model, so I don't think anyone has bothered trying to replicate it.
I'd guess maybe Stack Exchange might be the closest to what you're looking for if you just want communities where people answer questions (although it has its own problems as I understand it).
posted by ernielundquist at 11:32 AM on March 1, 2017
I used to work for Google Answers! And I don't think the people from there went anywhere in specific. And I agree with ernielundquist it was basically a setup for entitled users/askers a lot of the time and, with very little oversight by the people who ran it (I literally never knew the NAME of a person I worked for, they were just The Editors), just turned into a Mechanical Turk sort of place and wasn't that fun. I wrote a few things about my experience working there, once when I started and once when I left. You can still dig up some of their old pages via the Archive.
The whole idea, imo, was trying to make the concept of libraries and reference questions "scale" and make people willing to pay for it. It didn't really work out that way (not with faceless editors staffing the place) and was one of Google'as failed projects. I feel like Quora tried to be that sort of thing and Stack Exchange is probably the closest thing to a working platform, but it's just a tool not a business. The public library still exists, and is free.
posted by jessamyn at 11:51 AM on March 1, 2017 [5 favorites]
The whole idea, imo, was trying to make the concept of libraries and reference questions "scale" and make people willing to pay for it. It didn't really work out that way (not with faceless editors staffing the place) and was one of Google'as failed projects. I feel like Quora tried to be that sort of thing and Stack Exchange is probably the closest thing to a working platform, but it's just a tool not a business. The public library still exists, and is free.
posted by jessamyn at 11:51 AM on March 1, 2017 [5 favorites]
UPDATE: Look at what I just found.
I was looking around on one of the old researcher discussion boards, and apparently, several of the former GA researchers moved onto that site, which is similar to Google Answers in that you ask a question, set a price, and approved researchers will try to answer it for you.. It doesn't look very busy, but it is open for business.
posted by ernielundquist at 5:10 PM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
I was looking around on one of the old researcher discussion boards, and apparently, several of the former GA researchers moved onto that site, which is similar to Google Answers in that you ask a question, set a price, and approved researchers will try to answer it for you.. It doesn't look very busy, but it is open for business.
posted by ernielundquist at 5:10 PM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
There was also something iirc called "cha". I was accepted after passing some interview questions, but never actually answered any questions for hire/pay. It all seemed more trouble than it was worth.
posted by she's not there at 6:00 PM on March 1, 2017
posted by she's not there at 6:00 PM on March 1, 2017
ChaCha, actually--I had the same experience of joining out of curiosity but not pursuing it.
posted by Pryde at 7:21 PM on March 1, 2017
posted by Pryde at 7:21 PM on March 1, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by exogenous at 9:29 AM on March 1, 2017