The 'Ask the Planet 2006' Campaign started with a three-day event in Times Square from the 13th to the 15th of June, with print and radio ads and an online marketing campaign. With their slogan of 'Answer the world's biggest questions - Win the world's coolest prizes' Yahoo! has raised the profile of its Answers program by seeking answers to the world's biggest questions from celebrities, world-renowned authorities, and Yahoo! users.
The campaign featured a new category each day accompanied by a celebrity, expert or user question. For each best answer in the category of the day, users received one entry for a chance to win the prize for that day. The schedule of celebrity questions included, "What do you think it will take to reverse the effects of global climate change?" from Al Gore and, "What lessons can we learn from successful entrepreneurs?" from Donald Trump.
The most anticipated question came on the 5th of July from Dr Stephen Hawkings, one of the world's leading theoretical physicists and author of the surprise best-seller A Brief History of Time. Dr Hawkings asked "How can the human race survive the next hundred years?" More than 15,000 answers to the question were posted on the first day. Dr Hawkings' question also triggered feedback to the Yahoo! 360 blog page. Users from the community driven service interested in reading Dr Hawking's own opinion on the question he poses suggested he become a Yahoo! Answers guest blogger or guest editor. The comment: "It is a great honour to have him on Yahoo! Answers. I wonder why the celebrities always ask and never answer" came from regular blogger Batman.
Yahoo! Answers is not a unique concept of course, as Answers.com and Google Answers have also been using the user supplied answer formula for some time. Each of these services is interesting and fun to use, and all companies understand that participation is key to the success of this type of search engine.
