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ANSW
Feb 1, 2006 10:10:06 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 1, 2006 10:10:06 GMT -5
Guys, take a "real" look at this company and its product. www.answers.comI spent 2 hours just playing with the search and 1-click; it was amazing to say the least. I first noticed this website last week when I started this forum. I thought the recap was excellent and very friendly presentation/layout of information. I downloaded the 1-click and it's amazing and relatively quick. When yahoo is valued at 50 billion and google at 100 billion; i think 100 million may be a little light. As this company is nearing profitability (I estimate have a chance to this year) with rapidly growing revenues from its new business model. I always used to use yahoo to search; then switch to google 3 years ago; i'm now a HUGE fan of answers.com; while I may use google for hard to find stuff (articles on Pixar, etc.) - if I want information or "answers"- it's now almost 100% exclusively answers.com..just a simple click away. In fact, I bought 1,100 shares today or $15k worth; had to sell some Pixar to do it; but well....I see a pretty big future here. Your thoughts?
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ANSW
Feb 1, 2006 10:17:08 GMT -5
Post by greykitedad on Feb 1, 2006 10:17:08 GMT -5
I installed 1-click around Thanksgiving, it's very nice. I hadn't thought to invest in it though. Time for some DD, thanks.
(I think I can see your purchase in the volume chart at 9:45 ;-)
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ANSW
Feb 1, 2006 13:50:40 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 1, 2006 13:50:40 GMT -5
what about the sons just before it, 200 shares in his Edu IRA? lol btw; i wish we had this board sooner and you had mentioned it; because we'd both be up 30% if we had bought at $10 then. ------ i didn't know company behind it was publicly traded either, it wasn't until i went to MSN looking for "new stocks to invest in" that it came up on one of my screenings....revenue increase. which btw..the motley fool picked up on too i see. alexa says traffic is increasing on answers.com site; good for ad revenue...increasing sales..leading to break-even and eventual profits. i asked 5 people today..and nobody had an idea what answers.com was. they were shocked to see how easy 1-click work and were amazed. one of the person asked was a web-designer who does SEO. huh...clearly answers is not a household name for the vast majority. with it at 100 million market cap, no analyst or significant institutional ownership/following either. i'm very optimistic and will further my DD as well. in process of comparing searches and information yahoo,msn,google,answers. home from work - kid sitting, so i get to play while he sleeps.
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ANSW
Feb 1, 2006 15:40:23 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 1, 2006 15:40:23 GMT -5
Firefox is a web browser, which is part of the open-source Mozilla project. One of the most popular browsers, after Internet Explorer, Firefox released its beta version 1.5 in September, 2005. Among its new features are the addition of Answers.com to the search engine list in the tool bar, automated updates, drag and drop reordering of browser tabs, improvements to popup blocking, and a feature allowing users to easily clear private data. Firefox allows the user to install a variety of plug-ins created by other users. ----------- Firefox 1.5 Adds Answers.com for Quick Reference Integrated Dictionaries and Encyclopedias Built into Search Toolbar New York, NY and Mountain View, CA — Nov. 30, 2005 — Answers Corporation (NASD: ANSW), formerly GuruNet, creator of Answers.com, the answer-based search engine, and Mozilla Corp., creator of Firefox, announced today that the newest version 1.5 of the popular Mozilla Firefox Web browser provides Answers.com embedded in its search toolbar for reference and definition lookup. “We are proud to be included as the dictionary and reference solution in Firefox, which claims over 100 million downloads to date,” said Bob Rosenschein, Answers’ CEO. “This serves as further validation of our ‘one-stop answers’ approach.” “Firefox 1.5 will deliver a better Web experience for our tens of millions of users,” said Christopher Beard, vice president of products for Mozilla Corp. “We believe that including Answers.com in the Firefox search toolbar supports our goal of providing a Web browser that empowers people to look up facts more effectively on the Web.” Answers.com also offers extra functionality for Firefox users, including “right-click menu” lookup and a search sidebar, at www.answers.com/main/firefox_plugins.jsp. The extension improves ease-of-use by allowing users to look up any word by simply pressing “Alt” while clicking on the word. The agreement calls for an ad-revenue split between Answers and Mozilla on Answers traffic originating from the Firefox search toolbar.
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ANSW
Feb 1, 2006 15:50:13 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 1, 2006 15:50:13 GMT -5
this is old, but still relevant and a good synopsis: {not my posting from here on}
Here is an example of how Answers.com differs from normal search services. Suppose you want information on the city of Seattle. In Google, if you type in "Seattle," you get a long list of Web links, starting with the city's official Web site. At the top are links to maps of Seattle, and to news about Seattle.
Yahoo and MSN are worse, putting real-estate ads on top of their Web results. Ask Jeeves gives you a map and some local links, followed by a zillion ads. But other than the Ask Jeeves map, none gives you direct information. You must click on further links to learn anything.
The same search in Answers.com is radically different. You see a well-formatted page that includes a definition from the American Heritage dictionary. That is followed by a longer, but still compact, article on Seattle from the Columbia Encyclopedia. And that is followed by sections on current weather, and the local time. Then, there is a very long article on Seattle, with detailed maps, from the public, open-source Wikipedia encyclopedia.
To avoid a lot of scrolling, Answers.com provides a box at the upper left that allows you to quickly jump to each portion of the results page -- Dictionary, Encyclopedia, etc. You can also click once to get a Google Web search on Seattle. It also offers links to relevant blogs on a topic, to image searches and other resources.
Similarly, if you search for Tom Brady, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of my beloved New England Patriots, Answers.com gives you a brief biography from a service called Who2, followed by a longer Wikipedia article. Google, Yahoo and MSN give you pages of links, topped by ads. Ask Jeeves does a little better, but not as well as Answers.com. It provides the first few sentences of a biography, before several ads.
Answers.com is free, and it does have ads. But they are listed down the right side of its results pages, never atop the actual answers.
You can also download optional free software from Answers.com that works like the old GuruNet program, allowing you to get answers by Alt-clicking on any word on any screen. In Windows, this download also includes a toolbar for Internet Explorer and a search box that's always available in the lower-right corner of your screen. If you use the Firefox browser, you can download an optional Answers.com plug-in that works with the browser's built-in search box.
On the Mac, the optional GuruNet software enables you to select any word on any screen, highlight it and press some keys to get results.
There are some downsides to Answers.com. It has answers for only about a million available topics so far. And it relies heavily on Wikipedia, which has been criticized because it isn't written or edited by experts. But unlike some recognized sources like the online Encyclopedia Britannica, Answers.com is free and instantly searches multiple reference works from multiple publishers.
Answers.com is also a start toward a new search paradigm where the object is to provide real instant information, not just links to pages where that information may, or may not, be found. I urge you to try it.
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ANSW
Feb 1, 2006 20:41:35 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 1, 2006 20:41:35 GMT -5
Interesting info in 10Q
On October 17, 2005, we changed our corporate name from GuruNet Corporation to Answers Corporation. On August 2, 2005 we began trading on NASDAQ under the symbol ANSW. Prior to such date, our shares were traded on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol GRU.
Answers.com Proprietary Traffic On January 3, 2005, we announced the release of Answers.com, a website that had been launched in August 2004 in beta version. We also released "1-Click Answers" - a software tool that facilitates more efficient access to Answers.com. 1-Click Answers allows users working in any application such as e-mail, spreadsheet, word processing, database or other program to click on a word or phrase within a document and access Answers.com’s online library and display information about that word or phrase in a pop-up window. While Web users enjoy our integrated reference information, our basic Web site does not provide the “1-Click” functionality and context analysis that we include in our supplemental "1-Click Answers" software version. Our primary revenue model for Answers.com proprietary traffic is advertising. Currently, most of our ad revenue is earned from keyword-targeted advertisements. When a user searches sponsored keywords, a link to an advertiser’s Website is displayed.
Distribution Channels The more users to whom we deliver answer-based search services results, the more revenues we will potentially earn. Thus, we approach third-party sites offering to incentivize them for the right to deliver our services to their users. The fees we pay to our distribution channels are often calculated as a percentage of the revenue we earn by delivering services to their users. We also earn revenues from channels that pay us for providing our services to their users. These arrangements are based on various formulas, including a percentage of the revenues they earn by delivering our services to their users, fees based on the number of user queries and fixed periodic fees.
Our average daily queries during the first, second and third quarters of 2005 were approximately 900,000, 1,780,000, and 1,770,000 respectively. Traditionally, there is less Web activity during the summer months, especially in July and August, and this impacted our third quarter 2005 average daily queries. Our advertising revenue from such traffic, during the first, second and third quarters of 2005, was $107,000, $357,000, $500,000, respectively.
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ANSW
Feb 1, 2006 21:12:25 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 1, 2006 21:12:25 GMT -5
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ANSW
Feb 1, 2006 22:29:28 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 1, 2006 22:29:28 GMT -5
are we there yet? DD is never done; even after you have invested!!site.answers.com/main866/pressresources/Answer_Engine_Position_Paper.doc.... The simple premise behind the Answers.com philosophy is that most informational search efforts revolve around a specific topic. This follows closely the findings of an IBM study by search engine innovator Andrei Broder, where he determined that approximately 48% of searched are what he calls informational. Whether one is searching for nutritional information for avocados, the years that Louis V reigned, the meaning of the word jejune, or the weather in Paris, most search users would be most effectively satisfied with a fact-based, snapshot answer based on clear, authoritative data. In a sense, Answers.com satisfies the quest for “the perfect page.” The best analogy for this approach is the behavior of a first-rate hotel concierge. Hotel guests don’t generally approach the concierge expecting him to open the Yellow Pages to help them locate restaurants, shops, or museums. Were a concierge to delay guests by piling them high with reviews, newspaper clippings, instruction sheets and long-winded opinions, we’d doubt his effectiveness. His job is to have “actionable” facts, and to have them prepared and available before the request arrives. In order to deliver the right answer at the right time, the content editors at Answers.com have labored to build a comprehensive, cross-referenced database of dictionaries, encyclopedias, as well as connections to live, dynamic content (weather, local time, stock information). Answers.com then leverages the power of the internet as a conduit to transmit the answer, not as the primary source of the information itself. It’s all about reliability, consistency and predictability. ..... Today’s typical search engine opens up the world, providing almost infinite options and potential paths to explore. It is an alluring notion and widely accepted for now, but not a particularly efficient one when the goal is not to surf, but rather to learn. Therein lies the essence of next-generation web information retrieval: An answer engine directs the attention of the searcher to a specific answer. It removes the intermediary step, saving the user’s time and focusing his attention. As we watch them fight tooth and nail for market dominance, search engines exist and perform on the premise that the internet is a world-wide network of information, instantly accessible and optimally efficient. What they may need to come to terms with is that this notion fell by the wayside as the quantity of information proved too much for any single human mind to process. The best search engines search over 3 billion pages and filter out the 99.99% that are least appropriate, leaving you a list of only about 300,000 links from which to select the page that might contain your answer. And no matter how interested you may be, no one – but no one – needs to view 62,400 references to the Pythagorean Theorem. Once the major search players acknowledge this, they will be ready to graduate from the infancy stage of the industry, into its toddler phase. ........ Doggone, I'm convincing myself to buy more! LOL So simple, so easy, so true.....if they come (which they should) - its what 50% of people want most of the time; it'll track more advertisers (amazon,ebay,shopping,etc.) and that will drive more revenues and profit.. right. Anybody know what jejune means? 1-click..so easy, so nice opened in another browser window. I hope this thead hasn't been jejune.
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ANSW
Feb 1, 2006 23:36:21 GMT -5
Post by greykitedad on Feb 1, 2006 23:36:21 GMT -5
I'd buy ANSW in a minute if they'd given, as an example, the use of "jejune" from Woody Allen's "Love and Death" How's that for DD?
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ANSW
Feb 2, 2006 0:05:21 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 2, 2006 0:05:21 GMT -5
ah..you mean jejeunosity?
"(probably the same word as jejunosity, ostensibly coined by Woody Allen in Love and Death)"
wow..I surprise myself....LOL
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ANSW
Feb 2, 2006 11:14:18 GMT -5
Post by greykitedad on Feb 2, 2006 11:14:18 GMT -5
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ANSW
Feb 3, 2006 15:16:32 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 3, 2006 15:16:32 GMT -5
added 400 more shares today from the BBC/CHNG proceeds.
got 1500 shares at $20k. so i think i'm good for awhile.
yea risky, but I really think there is something special here.
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ANSW
Feb 3, 2006 20:41:17 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 3, 2006 20:41:17 GMT -5
via website:
How is Brainboost different from existing engines like Google?
Brainboost is an answer engine whereas Google is a Search engine.
What that means is that Brainboost actually finds answers to your questions posed in plain English as opposed to directing you to pages that simply mention the questions.
Brainboost, Using the AnswerRank™ system, intelligently reads hundreds of web pages derived from search results and extracts just the short and concise answer to your question, saving you time.
Following is a simplistic explanation showing the process of both engines
Google
User types in : “Why is mars red” Google Search engine retrieves all pages containing words "mars" and red". Search results are sorted by the number of links each one of them got from other pages. This is a good way to figure out which one of them is most trusted by others. Results are displayed with the snippet being the appearance of the question on the pages Typically, a user would then click on the first search result, read through the document and hope to find an answer. If an answer is not found within the first search result, the user needs to repeat this process with the next search result, sometimes having to read many web pages to finally get at the answer.
Brainboost
User types in : “Why is mars red” Brainboost translates the query into multiple queries that will raise the probability of finding the ANSWER to the question. Brainboost retrieves search engine results. Brainboost retrieves top several hundred pages and reads them. Brainboost finds answers and ranks them based on it's proprietary AnswerRank™ technology. AnswerRank™ knows to look at a set of many possible answers and rank them as to which one is probably the most correct. In this case: "Mars is red because of the iron in the soil" Brainboost displays the ANSWERS to the user
So you see, Brainboost is a fundamentally different way to find knowledge. Whereas Search engines force you to spend time searching for that piece of information, Brainboost does that for you by automatically reading the search results and extracting the precious answer to your question.
When you add up all time we spend plowing through search results for an answer, this functionality translates to hours of time saved.
While search engines like MSN and Ask Jeeves have recently made limited attempts at answering questions from finite databases or precanned editorially collected answers, Brainboost is the only engine that leverages the full knowledge available on the web.
Brainboost. It’s the next evolutionary step in search engines.
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ANSW
Feb 3, 2006 20:45:13 GMT -5
Post by just_an_ant on Feb 3, 2006 20:45:13 GMT -5
Seriously folks... type this question (why is mars red?) in at yahoo google answers then type it in at brainboost brainboost was bought by answers i like answers ... a lot
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ANSW
Mar 15, 2006 20:55:35 GMT -5
Post by justanant on Mar 15, 2006 20:55:35 GMT -5
ANSW on sale 20% below where I bought it.. Anyways..a better spot to share ANSW insights and DD.. Oh yea, I'm up to my spreadsheet tricks like I did with Pixar (hope I'm as successful with forecasting ANSW - give me some time to work and refine the model) Always do your own DD. www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=5153
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