Results generated from Yahoo’s search engine now feature a more in-depth social component as part of the company’s attempt to incorporate user-generated content via Yahoo! Answers.
“Starting today, you’ll be seeing some enhancements to the Yahoo! Answers direct display at the bottom of certain Yahoo! Search results pages. While the original version of the direct display featured questions from Yahoo! Answers, the enhanced Shared by Yahoos’ version includes both the full Yahoo! Answers question and an excerpt of the Best Answer’ – giving users a more detailed preview of user generated content from the Answers community. The new direct display also includes avatars of the users whose answers are selected, making it easy to identify the social nature of the Yahoo! Answers direct display.”
“All of these changes are designed to incorporate more user-generated content into the search results pages for Yahoo! Search users to get insight from the millions of real people who make up the Yahoo! Answers community.”
It seemed interesting enough for a Friday afternoon, so I decided to take the new feature for a spin.
Click for Full Size ImageOur Yahoo! contact suggested searching for “vacation ideas” to show off the new look of Yahoo! answers.
The content seems to be more or less relevant, although I can’t quite relate to couples in Beaumont, TX when it comes to planning a family vacation. But I digress
Moving on, I decided to try a more relevant term like “Christmas shopping” and see what the Yahoo! Answers community could offer.
Click for Full Size ImageThe “best answers” here seemed to be completely relevant, and coincidentally addresses a couple of topics I have actually been curious about.
The glaring flaw of the system so far is the lack of user-submitted content. My search for vacation ideas yielded a mere 111 user answers, while Christmas shopping was only met with 63 posts.
Clearly, the feature is still in its infancy, and will require a much larger user base in order to provide a comprehensive answer resource for Yahoo! search users.
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Joe is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
