Stanford University researchers analyzed 10 months worth of content from Yahoo's popular Answers service to learn about the people using it and where it might go in the future.
When we first covered
Yahoo Answers proved so successful that even Questioning Yahoo! Answers
The researchers cited the rise of various forms of social media sites, like Flickr, Facebook, and StumbleUpon, and attempts by Microsoft and Amazon.com to mimic the success of Yahoo Answers with their services.
Among their findings, the researchers tell us some topics are more popular that others. From August 2005, the start of testing with Yahoo Answers (it did not open to the public until December 2005) through May 2006, Love & Romance proved the most popular topic, followed by Entertainment. The least popular topics were of a local nature: Dining Out, and Local Businesses.
When it came to participation, the same pattern seen in social media happened with Yahoo Answers. People were more interested in receiving than giving, according to the researchers:
Overall, we observe three interesting phenomena in user behavior. First, the majority of users are askers, a phenomenon partly explained by the role of the system: Yahoo! Answers is a place to “ask questions”. Second, only a small fraction of these users gets involved in answering questions or providing feedback (votes). Hence, it seems that a large number of users are keen only on “receiving” from rather than “giving” to others. Third, there is a small portion of the user population that provides answers or votes.
They also noted the difference in the amount of participation, depending on the topic:
General, lighter, topics, which interest a large population, such as Love & Romance, attract many inquiries. On the other hand, topics that do not require expert opinions, such as Social Science, or that can be answered based on personal experience, such as Pregnancy & Parenting, attract many answers.
Answerbag, which does try to route people to existing answers based on their questions.
The folks at Resource Shelf also noted another omission in the research paper. "We wonder if the researchers were aware of library virtual reference services and how they compare to what Yahoo Answers provides?" they asked.
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