For those not familiar with the concept, the 'human-powered' search engine concept rests on the assumption that those of us with time and knowledge are willing to share that knowledge with others for either a nominal fee or for free. While an interesting concept, and certainly one with high ideals, rarely has the concept taken off to be used by a broad range of users. Can Microsoft's involvement change all that?
A twist on the standard offering is the ability for users to vote on the usefulness, or quality, of the answers given. This is clearly a concept which is currently having it's day, as most of the big name success stories these days make use of the function - in fact, user filtering could be said to be the driving technology behind the phenomenon of 'social search', as practiced by digg and del.icio.us. Other familiar terms being used with Windows Live QnA that seem familiar from social search are tagging, reputation based scoring, and user censorship.
So could this 2.0ing of an old concept work out?
The final answer, as with most Microsoft products is: yes, if enough money is put behind it. With the introduction of the social search features, Windows Live QnA is not so much a revamped Google Answers as it is a smaller, more fluid Wikipedia. With the introduction of the stored information available from their Encarta encyclopedia, we could see a real fight on our hands between the two resources.
Microsoft is looking for better visibility and, ultimately, dominance online, particularly where it challenges Google. The Windows Live QnA service, and other beta releases from last week, show that the software company so used to dominating software markets is stepping up to the bat in yet another.
