Google is set to re-launch its research service Google Answers, it has been suggested.According to a post on the unofficial Google Operating System blog, the search engine provider intends to re-introduce the service as Google Q&A.
Google Answers was initially rolled out in April 2002 and was intended as an extension of traditional search whereby users would pay researchers to hunt for information for them, rather than seek it out themselves.
Customers could post a question and offer a price for the answer. Researchers would then get back to them with the desired information.
Google shut down the service in December 2006 and now only its archives remain.
However, it has been reported that the company is now preparing to re-launch it as Google Q&A.
Already available in Russia and China, the function no longer has paid experts and works in a similar way to Yahoo! Answers.
The way the service operates in Russia is that users accrue points based on how good their answers are. These "reputation points" can then be used instead of money to pay for responses to questions, TechCrunch reports.
According to the blog posting, "it's interesting to note that Google Q&A is also the name of a feature that displays answers to simple questions at the top of Google's search results page".
"Maybe Google will combine the facts automatically extracted from web pages with the explicit answers from the new service," it adds.
