Google Answers using bitcoins

[eldentyrell]

I really miss the old answers.google.com service.  The fact that the researchers got paid (and optionally tipped) made a huge difference in the quality of results.  The answers.yahoo.com service is nowhere close to this.

I think the biggest obstacle to somebody replicating this service is making small payments to large numbers of people.  This can be pretty expensive if you have to go through the conventional banking system and you've got researchers in every country around the world.  I also suspect that if you use the US banking system to pay US citizens the tax authorities will make you do so much paperwork it will become unprofitable.

Has anybody set up an equivalent service that uses bitcoin as a way for the questioners to pay the researchers?  Sounds like a no-brainer.  If nobody's done this, I might take a swing at it in a few months.

[mc_lovin]

It is a good idea to incorporate bitcoins into. I see two possible scenarios: Users who have bitcoins can tip people who give good answers, or you could have advertising to build up some revenue, and then give a reward to the winning answer from the company account, using bitcoins to make the payments. Or you could do both, with people having an option to tip answers, but also have a reward for the winning answer.

Either way, it would take a large marketing push to get people using it, people will not want to ask questions somewhere where nobody is there to answer yet. If done right, this could be marketed to non-bitcoiners, and then if they want to withdraw money they earn by answering questions they have to use bitcoins. Alternately, they could use the credits to tip other people who answer. You could pair it with a nice webwallet service to get them using bitcoins and help them understand what to do with them. I like strongcoin because of the security, but BTCinch is probably easier to understand for bitcoin newbies.

Fantastic idea both on the tipping and the advertising.  People would sit on that site waiting for an question to be asked in hope that they provide the most helpful answer to the question in hopes of someone tipping.  Great idea!

[ribuck]

I really miss the old answers.google.com service.

I was one of the Google Answers Researchers. When Google Answers closed, I set up Uclue as a replacement. The answers are provided by several dozen former Google Answers Researchers. PayPal is used for payments.

If anyone has a serious business proposition to convert the site to Bitcoin, send me a PM or reply here please.

Also be aware that there is already a failed attempt at a Bitcoin version: http://bitqna.com/
At that site, payment is optional, which is never going to work.

[eldentyrell]

People would sit on that site waiting for an question to be asked in hope that they provide the most helpful answer to the question in hopes of someone tipping.  Great idea!

Um, just to be clear, it's mandatory that you post a bounty with your question (this is how Google Answers worked).

If you're particularly happy with the answer, you may voluntarily add a tip.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned tipping; it appears to be confusing people.

[eldentyrell]

Also be aware that there is already a failed attempt at a Bitcoin version: http://bitqna.com/

Ah, thanks, I would have been amazed if somebody hadn't tried this already.

At that site, payment is optional, which is never going to work.

Agreed.  This is the same reason why answers.yahoo.com is totally useless.

[eldentyrell]

I really miss the old answers.google.com service.

I was one of the Google Answers Researchers. When Google Answers closed, I set up Uclue as a replacement. The answers are provided by several dozen former Google Answers Researchers.

Your site seems to only allow people who used to be Google Answers researchers to answer questions and collect bounties.

Uclue is clearly the website of choice for people who were at one point researchers for Google Answers.

For everybody else, it appears that there is an unmet need.

(edit: you also seem to have to take a rather large cut (25%), although this is understandable in light of the fact that you bear all the risks of dealing with Paypal)

[Tuxavant]

I really miss the old answers.google.com service.

Also be aware that there is already a failed attempt at a Bitcoin version: http://bitqna.com/

Not sure why you're calling this a failure. It's my first time seeing and it looks like a good start.

Why wouldn't you just go ahead and make uclue Bitcoin compatible? I think this is one of the best ways for Bitcoin to take off across the world. It gives people even more incentive to look into Bitcoin (both supporting and querying uses). My vote: Just DOIT!

[ribuck]

Why wouldn't you just go ahead and make uclue Bitcoin compatible?

Life can be complicated. I'm currently being pursued by patent trolls, although I don't think Uclue infringes their patents. If I did substantial new development I would probably structure the service differently so that it's obvious (even to a patent troll) that the service doesn't infringe these patents.

US Patent 7,472,071: "Interactive System for Managing Questions and Answers Among Users and Experts"

US Patent 7,596,578: "Method and Apparatus for Operating and Funding a Question and Answer Interactive System"