Google to close Answers

Goodbye from him is Danny Sullivan who is leaving Search Engine Watch, the web-based publication he founded about a decade ago. Sullivan quickly became a treasured source for puzzled hacks everywhere as they attempted to figure out what the heck was going on with these companies with silly names that didn't appear to, you know, make anything.

Goodbye from them is Google Answers, the mad woman in the attic of the G-men's infinite assets. In a case of the biter bit, the Google fee-based service has been trounced by Yahoo Answers, a community-based effort.

Go to Google Answers today and you get this:

"We're sorry, but Google Answers has been retired, and is no longer accepting new questions. Search or browse the existing Google Answers index by using the search box above or the category links below."

Who better to analyse this than Sullivan himself in one of his last notes?

"The company has announced that new questions won't be accepted after the New Year, though the site will continue to let people view the question archives. Killing off the service, which never seemed to catch on much, certainly will help Google seem like it is focusing efforts toward more needed areas. But it still feels like an odd, almost surrendering move in the face of Yahoo Answers being such a success."

Although Google is the golden child of the internet age, it has been noted that not several of its properties are not what they might be. Have you used Froogle recently, for example? µ