Tag: news

3 new things about Answers.com

Hey there! It’s been awhile. Things have been busy at Answers.com. Here’s a look at the latest and greatest.

1. In April we debuted our newly designed homepage. What do you think? The new layout features more photos and Q&A about specific topics ranging from movies to money, and baseball to baking. Topics will change often depending on current events and seasons. You’ll also notice a new recent activity module in the top right corner. Look there to find out who is asking what, this very second.

2. You may have noticed a new look for our topic pages, an upgrade from the current category pages. Just like category pages, topic pages show that category’s supervisor, recent activity and top contributors, but they have a fresher look, with photos, contributor avatars and featured content.

3. Why not put a face to that username of yours? When you connect your Answers account with Facebook, your avatar will show on every question you answer or edit, and have a better chance of being featured on the homepage or topic pages. Once you have an account, become a Google+ contributor (click the G+ link in the left menu on the homepage) and your avatar will show in Google search results for questions you have answered.

Let us know what you think about our redesign and new features and stay tuned for more news!

Q&A resource for Japan earthquake.

Our hearts and thoughts are with those in Japan and other areas affected by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami on Friday. Since then, there have been over 125 aftershocks and around 10,000 people reported missing.

There is now a Japan Earthquake Q&A category set up on Answers.com; check it out here.

Check stock quotes on your phone, from Answers.com.

Did you know? You can easily check company stock quotes, charts and news on Answers.com with QuoteMedia. Aim big and see how Google is doing, or find out the latest news and media for Ethan Allen Interiors.

But wouldn’t it be even better on the go? Yeah, we agree. Check the same data on your phone by going to answers.com in your browser on your Android, iPhone and other handheld devices. Look up the company on Answers.com and get your info, organized in expandable tabs:

Answers.com Agrees to be Acquired for $127 Million in Cash: $10.50 per Share

Answers.com, (NASDAQ: ANSW), creators of the leading answer engine Answers.com®, today announced that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by AFCV Holdings, LLC, a portfolio company of growth equity investor Summit Partners, for a total cash consideration of approximately $127 million. AFCV will acquire all outstanding shares of Answers.com common stock, Series A convertible preferred stock and Series B convertible preferred stock. Under the terms of the agreement, Answers.com common stock shareholders will receive $10.50 in cash for each outstanding share of common stock they own. The holders of Series A and Series B convertible preferred stock will also be entitled to receive cash consideration based on the number of the common stock into which those shares are convertible at the time of the merger.

“This is a great outcome for our shareholders,” said Bob Rosenschein, Founder, Chairman and CEO. “After an exciting six years as a public company, we are very pleased to achieve considerable value for our investors. The acquisition price of $10.50 per share represents a significant cash premium of approximately 33% over our 90-day volume-weighted average closing stock price.”

Mr. Rosenschein continued, “This agreement is also a positive for our community members. The integrity and commitment of our company to our products remain unchanged, as we continue our mission of creating the ultimate destination for answers.”

The board of directors of Answers.com has unanimously approved the merger with AFCV Holdings, LLC and recommends that the stockholders of Answers.com vote to adopt the merger agreement. Answers.com expects to hold a special meeting of stockholders to consider and vote on the proposed merger and merger agreement as soon as practicable after the mailing of the proxy statement to its stockholders.

The transaction has fully committed financing and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2011, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including the approval of Answers.com stockholders and receipt of regulatory clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended.

UBS Investment Bank is acting as exclusive financial advisor and Kramer, Levin, Naftalis & Frankel, LLC as legal advisor to Answers.com. Jefferies & Company, Inc. is serving as financial advisor and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Professional Corporation as legal advisor to AFCV Holdings.

See full press release here.

MediaPost finds Answers (.com)

What’s behind Answers.com? MediaPost’s Online Media Daily has the details as explained by Bob Rosenschein, founder and CEO  of the questions and answers site: Searching For Answers (.com)

Here’s a summary from this weekend’s article about Answers.com – what’s been happening and where we’re going in 2011:

  • The company provides licensed content from 250 encyclopedias and dictionaries for free. Two weeks ago, the company added the Random House Word Menu containing related words — not only synonyms, but concepts.
  • Both the user interface and the backend system will get an overhaul this year. An automatic reputation management system is in the works. It measures statistical factors such as capitalization and spelling to estimate the quality of a community-contributed answer.
  • A new user interface dubbed “Project Aqua” will roll out in the coming months. New social features will help users tie their Answers.com activity into their social graphs.

Read the full article at MediaPost.

Year in review: Q&A from the news.

What a year for news – iPads, volcanoes, an oil spill, and more. The Answers.com community was busy answering as quickly as the questions came in. So here we are at year’s end to share some of the Q&As from the most popular news events of the year. If you’ve got your own fond memories of a question on the site, please share in the comments below!

One of the top three questions on Answers.com in January 2010 was “Where is Haiti located?” Searches for the Caribbean nation exploded after a deadly 7.0-magnitude quake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on January 12, killing approximately 230,000 people.

After only seven months on air, Conan O’Brien hosted his Tonight Show on January 22. NBC forced the quirky redhead out of his spot after Jay Leno’s ratings plummeted at the 10 p.m. spot. The debacle only emboldened Conan’s admirers who dubbed themselves Team Coco. He eventually moved his act to TBS.

Apple announced their anticipated tablet computer in January, calling it the iPad. Female hygiene jokes abounded on Twitter, but eventually the world came to love the touchscreen gadget.

Quarterback Drew Brees led the New Orleans Saints to their first Super bowl win in the franchise’s history. The victory revitalized a city downtrodden from Hurricane Katrina five years earlier.

Much of Washington, DC, was buried under snow during February 2010. Dubbed “Snowmageddon” or “Snowpocalypse” the series of blizzards dropped more than 55 inches of snow in the DC/Baltimore areas, an all-time record.

During the 52nd annual Grammy Awards, Beyonce Knowles became the first woman to win six awards in one night, including Song of the Year for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”

President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a sweeping health care overhaul, into law on March 23.

Twitter starts selling advertising on its site for the first time since its 2006 (?) founding. “Promoted tweets” bought by advertisers appear above other content.

Eruptions from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano created an ash cloud so huge, it grounded European flights for six days in April.

Lady Gaga reigned on YouTube in April 2010. With more than one billion views, the pop star broke the record for views from a single channel.

A BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded on April 20, killing 11 men and eventually leaking an estimated 185 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean ecosystem. The leak wasn’t completely capped until mid-September.

David Cameron became the youngest British Prime Minister in 200 years. He was elected on May 6.

And on the other end of the age spectrum, octogenarian actress Betty White hosted Saturday Night Live on May 9. Proving the power of social media, the Facebook page “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!” gained several hundred thousand followers and campaigned to get the actress on the show.

The 2010 World Cup kicked off on June 11 in South Africa and football fans worldwide endured monthlong Vuvuzela-induced headaches.

What a year of Q&A! Stay tuned for 2011 – we wonder what will make the news then!

Way or no way: blufr’s new bonus category is WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks, the rogue media organization that works to publish confidential diplomatic and classified documents and videos, is itself the center of the media’s attention in the last week after it unleashed hundreds of thousands of confidential cables from U.S. records.

Well, at least that’s all ‘way.’

But what else do you know? blufr just posted the latest bonus category – WikiLeaks – so it’s time to find out.

Way or no way:

Keep up with current events – and play blufr to figure out fact from fiction…

What’s new on WikiAnswers… newsletter edition.

Yesterday the latest WikiAnswers newsletter went out, and I thought I’d recap the highlights for y’all in case you aren’t on the mailing list. If you’d like to be added to the mailing list, leave a comment and I’ll pass your name along to the powers-that-be.

On to the news… letter:

New chance to win prizes with Mission: Recategorization

Missed out on the AnswerThon? No sweat. Mission: Recategorization is the challenge to recategorize the most questions located in the Uncategorized category to their appropriate categories. The contest started last night at midnight, and lasts until 11:59pm (EDT) on Monday, August 11th.

There are prizes to be won! Find out more and get started.
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AnswerThon Results

Thanks to everyone who participated in the first ever charity-edition WikiAnswers AnswerThon! Hundreds of contributors sponsored a charitable organization by answering questions from July 26-27. See the list of winners and participants on the AnswerThon results page.
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Introducing the Community Development Team

We’ve created a Community Development team of Wikiholics to support the rapidly-growing WikiAnswers community. There’s nothing like keeping that addiction to WikiAnswers alive!

To briefly introduce the team: Deb, Brave3, Robin, Zanbabe, and Eliesheva. Feel free to stop by their Message boards and offer your suggestions and feedback.

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Dispute Resolution on WikiAnswers

The Community Advisor Team is a new initiative to have a Dispute Resolution program for the community. Our aim is to make you feel comfortable settling disputes with your fellow contributors. To ensure impartiality, the team remains anonymous. Review Community Guidelines & Dispute Resolution in the Help Center.

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New feature: Share your Q&A

Now you can share any Q&A page however you prefer! Use the Share button below answered questions to add the Q&A page to your favorites or post it on social networking/bookmarking sites (like MySpace, Facebook, Delicious, Twitter and Digg). Learn more about the Share button.

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Name the Youth/Teen Group Contest

WikiAnswers recognizes youth contributors as valuable members of the Q&A community and so we are announcing the WikiAnswers Teen/Youth Initiative.

Here’s where the contest (with prizes) comes in: This program needs a name! Submit your name suggestion by Wednesday, August 6, and win! Get contest details.

What’s new: the What’s New page!

Thanks to a truly talented designer, there is a fun new page on WikiAnswers for keeping up with what’s new. The page is called, er, What’s New and it highlights the What’s new section from this very blog along with new categories added to WikiAnswers and press releases.

So now you can go there to get the quick rundown or come here for the full story.

Answers in the (cyber) news.

You know what I love finding on a Sunday afternoon? Cyber journalists and bloggers referring to Answers.com when they are looking for information for their articles. Doesn’t matter what the subject – sports, celebrities, politics – I love it all.

Here are some of the latest – in fact, they cover sports, celebrities and politics!

  • At SeattlePi.com, Jim Moore learns a new word – internecine – from Answers.com. While he now gets the meaning, he has yet to figure out how to pronounce it (hint: use the pronunciation tool at the top of the page!)
  • The Gaston Gazette celebrates the works of John T. Biggers with an article about the world-renown artist; credit for facts about his life go to you-know-who.
  • OpedNews researches the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act as part of their article on government snooping.

AnswerThon news released into the wild.

It’s officially official: The AnswerThon has been announced to the Q&A world via press release yesterday. Looks like it was picked up in quite a few places so far, including Business Wire, Axim Site, PR Inside, TMC net, Digital Producer, MSN Money, Excite.

Bring on the answers, folks!

2007 News in Review: The flip side.

Last week we brought you the WikiAnswers Year in Review: The questions behind the news of 2007.

But what about the news we didn’t necessarily hear about in the mainstream? What about… the flip side?

Like elves around the North in December, our staff at Answers has been busy running around collecting bits of odd, bizarre news from the past year to bring you: 2007 News in Review: The flip side.

Here’s a quick look at what we’ve learned at Answers.com this crazy year:

  • Anger helps you make better decisions…
  • The appendix does have a purpose!
  • Chinese researchers have (finally!) created fluorescent green pigs, using jellyfish DNA.
  • A photographer created art from 18,000 naked people at a plaza in Mexico City.

Read the rest of the year’s wacky news reviewed: 2007 News in Review: The flip side