Answers Summit Brings Together Q&A Community

Client Answers.com announces first Answers Summit, which will bring together members to meet, mingle and celebrate their growing Q&A community.

The Answers Summit's Q&A community event will be hosted December 5-6, 2009 in Atlanta, GA.  The Summit will include workshops on growing, improving and celebrating WikiAnswers, the community-generated Q&A platform of Answers.com.

A guest speaker from the Cyberbullying Research Center will conduct a workshop titled ‘The Fight Against Cyberbullying.’ A second workshop, conducted by a Performance Specialist, will focus on communicating effectively online. The conference will be addressed by keynote speakers Bob Rosenschein, CEO, and Bruce D. Smith. Additional highlights of the event include a trip to the Georgia Aquarium with a catered dinner.

Larry Schwartz or Yossi Vardi?

Fans of Yossi are everywhere, the latest in LA at the 140 Character Conference, held in Hollywood's Kodak Theater late last month.

What Makes a Popular Answers Destination Site?

At this month's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, client Answers.com's Bob Rosenschein talks about the latest growth and why its such a popular answers destination site with KRON-TV's Brian Shields.

101 Questions on John Battelle & Tim O'Reilly: How Many Can You Answer?

Client Answers.com sponsored Web 2.0 Summit this past week. One interesting way to participate was to create 101+ questions on hosts John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly.

Here's a sample of questions on Tim and John. Technology geeks, execs and visionaries: how many can you answer? Go to Answers.com to have some fun with it, as well as to discover answers to other compelling facts and things.

We also had fun with customized t-shirts - why not? Doesn't everyone Google themselves? Why not Answers.com yourself, even if its merely to find out a bit more about where your name originates from.

Below are CEO Bob Rosenschein and product manager Shaya Loney on-site.

Their traffic is growing, up in September from August according to comScore. Answers.com’s combined U.S. unduplicated unique visitors reached 56.4 million in September.

comScore data for September positioned WikiAnswers as the leading community-driven Q&A site in the United States in terms of unique visitors. That means that Answers.com sites now have a higher audience than major brands such as CNN.com, craigslist and New York Times Digital.

Answers Corp. Moves to comScore Rank of #18

Client Answers Corporation's (NASDAQ: ANSW) August numbers move to comScore Rank of #18; data follows implementation of hybrid easurement under comScore’s new media metrix 360.

This report reflects first-time measurement data following Answers’ implementation of comScore’s new measurement methodology, Media Metrix 360, also known as a “panel-centric hybrid” solution.

According to comScore, Answers’ U.S. unique visitors reached 45.1 million in August (rank #18). WikiAnswers had 36.2 million U.S. unique visitors and ReferenceAnswers had 16.5 million U.S. unique visitors in August.

According to comScore, its new ‘hybrid’ measurement methodology is aimed at eliminating the long-standing confusion about the differences between internal client metrics and the publicly reported third-party audience estimates.

comScore has developed a proprietary methodology to combine stand-alone panel and server-side metrics to calculate audience reach in a manner that is not effected by distortions such as cookie deletion, cookie rejection and non-user requested traffic. comScore clients can choose to implement hybrid measurement for their own sites by embedding beacon calls on user-requested content.

Certain comScore clients have moved to the Full Hybrid measurement methodology, while others have moved to “Partial Hybrid” status (as did Answers) or have yet to implement hybrid measurement.

Improve Your Inductive Reasoning Through Mind360

I recently learned about this cool Israel-based company Mind360, which develops mind games and it's not just for older folks with aging brains.

As you get older that it's harder to find where you left your car keys, your brush, even your cup of coffee while you're running around the house trying to get out in the morning?

The brain is a muscle - I learned a lot about how the brain tools and retrains itself after my grandfather had a stroke.

Advanced brain training games help improve your memory, increase your ability to stay focused, and help you make faster and better decisions.

Brain Training Benefits:

* Sharpen your memory
* Stay focused longer
* Increased alertness and awareness
* Make quicker and wiser decisions
* Boost your productivity
* Function better overall
* Feel better about yourself and your life

Not only do these guys develop the games and training programs for you to meet your own personal goals, but they have the data (and returning players) to prove they work. Aging boomers can certainly gain, not just their parents.

Using the game as a medium, you follow whatever personal brain fitness program that’s right for you, advancing you from one level to the next.

You can not only track your progress, but a Personal Trainer will also guide you with instant feedback indicating in which cognitive areas you are strong and where you can improve.

SaaS Goes Open Source: Kaltura's Yekutiel Tells Us Why

Kaltura's Ron Yekutiel talks to us about open source and video. They organized and participated in a SaaS Goes Open Source panel at AlwaysOn this week, together with SpikeSource, Zimbra, Acquia, Fenwick & West and Alfresco.

It's disruptive he says, but tears down those gardened walls giving corporations better control, flexibility and better integration. More from Ron on the SaaS model, video and open source below.

My6Sense Updates Us

Barak Hachamov and the My6Sense team gathers in Palo Alto to talk about their updates and upcoming iPhone app.

Every Israeli Has a Pitch

We interviewed multiple entrepeneurs and movers and shakers at the inaugural Israel Conference in LA a couple of weeks ago. The result? A four part video series which you can tune into below.

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

Also on YouTube although the full content is included here. Links: Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV.

Startups Need Stories

The final panel at The Israel Conference crowded themselves onto the stage, three judges and five digital entertainment start-ups in a simulated Hollywood pitch meeting.

The most valuable lesson was the insight into how ideas are sold in the entertainment industry.  Apparently, the people who write the checks have attention spans that make Twitter seem like Tolstoy.   Or perhaps it's just that in Hollywood pitching stories is the norm, so people need a narrative.

Like the rest of us, really.  When the judges looked bored their expressions were matched by the members of the audience.  One of the threads woven through the day's panels was that we need to tell good stories.   The themes of Israeli character were brought up again and again, usually in the context of a story.  The conference included a surprise visit (and story) from Lou Lenart, one of the heroes of Israel's war of independence.

Perhaps the most illustrative example on the panel was when Yosi Glick pitched Jinni, a movie search engine that helps you choose films based on search terms that have meaning and texture rather than flat keywords with no emotional content. Think - "I'm in the mood for..." instead of "Where are your action movies?"

Here's how Glick, the company's president, started: "I don't know what movies my wife likes and I've been married to her for 24 years.  Plus I have no idea what her mood is.  So I have a challenge, because I want to save my marriage."   His business idea was going to be the cavalry in his life's own romantic comedy, and we were ready to buy tickets.

Shortly after he went to the slide presentation we started to get lost.  Most demos can't avoid the PowerPointed details, but it all should feed the story - one of the judges, David Wertenheimer of USC's Entertainment Technology Center, even suggested that he have some slides at the front and back of the presentation, at first fighting over a movie choice and at the end watching happily into the sunset. 

The other presentations are in streaming video available at the conference link above.  It's worth a look, both for the content of the pitches and for the process itself.