'Ask and Answer' Gains Traction Online

Yahoo! (YHOO - commentary - Cramer's Take) has an answers product that is the leader in the space, buts its linear, non-wiki format limits the usefulness. Users don't typically want to scroll through multiple answers looking for the best one -- crowdsourcing has shown it's much better to let the community refine a single answer.

Adding to growing interest in "Ask and Answer" is the recent repositioning of Ask.com search engine.

Ask.com, which is owned by IAC/InterActive (IACI - commentary - Cramer's Take), has a new advertising campaign focused on questions and answers, and the search engine itself is attempting to provide actual snippets of results in the search engine results pages.

"Ask and Answer" is going to be a growing segment of Web queries. Until Google (GOOG - commentary - Cramer's Take) stops providing millions of "blue links" in response to simple questions like "how do I bake a pizza," business models to provide instant information are going to keep gaining traction. It's worth noting that the majority of revenue for both Ask.com and Answers Corp. come from Google ads, so Google is also a winner if these models get more traction.

I have the pleasure of speaking this afternoon at the OMMA conference on the topic of ad networks. I'll post highlights of the event soon.

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Please note that due to factors including low market capitalization and/or insufficient public float, we consider Answers Corp. to be a small-cap stock. You should be aware that such stocks are subject to more risk than stocks of larger companies, including greater volatility, lower liquidity and less publicly available information, and that postings such as this one can have an effect on their stock prices.

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At time of publication, Gillis had no positions in the stocks mentioned, although holdings can change at any time.

Colin Gillis is a managing partner at Click Capital -- a specialized research and consultancy targeting the Internet sector. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks.