In a short, shallow article just describing the phenomenon of answer-type websites, the author describes how popular Yahoo! Answers may have gotten that way — because of intrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards have a large research base to show they are usually more powerful and stronger than extrinsic or external rewards, such as money or reputation “points.”

I say shallow, because articles of this nature are written more to introduce people to a “newer” type of online service than to actually explore its usefulness or whether its popularity is just the latest Internet fad. The article creates as many questions as it answers:

How come people just don’t type their question into a search engine to find the answer to a factual question far more quickly and accurately than answering a community of random strangers?

What isn’t discussed is how long can people keep asking and answering the similar questions over and over again?

Or how do the answers given are or are not better than what is found via a search engine (if all a person is looking for is an “answer”)?

And whether there is any long-term burnout from people who give hundreds or thousands of answers over years of time?

Interesting stuff.

Helping strangers for no tangible reward is a huge phenomenon online — huge enough to have repercussions for the largest businesses. Yahoo sells ads on Answers, where visitors do most of the work, while other companies gratefully let volunteers provide online technical support.

Google Inc. started its Answers service four years ago, three years before Yahoo, but pulled the plug on it this December. One major difference between them: on Google Answers, the answerers were paid, at rates set by the askers.

Google didn’t explain why it cancelled the service, but research company Hitwise estimated that free Yahoo Answers had 24 times as much traffic in October.

At the end of 2006, there were 85 million answers on Yahoo. Many of them are flippant, but there is genuine advice and well-researched fact there. (‘How much fabric goes into the construction of a hot air balloon?’ Marchal: about 12,751 square feet. He included an explanation of how he computed the answer.)

Read the full AP article, Online, Helping Strangers Is Huge, on Topix.net.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 16 Jan 2007
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