What the real objective of "YAHOO ANSWERS"? Is it for people or to notice them?

Answer 1

Beats me!

Somewhere, somehow, someone must be making $$$ out of Yahoo! Answers, or they wouldn't keep doing it. But who? how? I don't know.

For those of us who play the game (for example, the 4463 people who, at this moment, have answered Lesley Stahl's question on the most under-reported story of 2006)--well, we each would have to answer your question for ourselves.

As an Asker, I almost never gets answers that satisfy me; so I rarely ask. Don't play a game you never win, I guess.

But as an Answerer, Y!A is like playing solitaire or working crossword puzzles or keeping a journal or reading Doonesbury every day. It's just something fun to do, a way to spend time that engages the mind and imagination and gives one a sense of closure or personal satisfaction.

And perhaps--just perhaps--one's answers may prove helpful to the Asker or other readers. Perhaps one communicates genuinely with someone else, a learner out there. Not usually, I must admit. Most of the time, I can't tell whether the Asker or anyone else has read the responses. Voters often, I am convinced, have not.

And, for the life of me, I can't see the point of the points!

But, like Kansai Teacher, whose answer preceded mine, I can't keep from teaching. Teachers never know whether their lesson are gonna take or not. Teachers never expect to be compensated adequately for their efforts. Teachers long for a gleam in a student's eye and feel richly rewarded when it happens. But, mostly, teachers like to teach.

So once a day I play solitaire, I work a couple of crossword puzzles, I read Doonesbury, and I answer two or three questions on Y!A (even Lesley Stahl's, when I feel sure no one will read my response). I choose questions simply because they are interesting to me (like this one) and provoke and ten- or fifteen-minute writing. Usually I think of myself as teaching the Asker something. Occasionally (like now) I just want to join in the conversation.

Thank you for inviting us into your conversation. Wonder if any of us have really answered your question?

See ya round!

(And another 26 people just responded to Lesley Stahl. It's up to 4489 now.)

Answer 2

There are probably almost as many objects as there are people using it. I'm a teacher and I see giving good information to people as part of my job/calling. I started because I had a question for which my own research was unable to find an answer. I stayed because it's fun & entertaining. There seem to be a lot of idiots here, but there are also some real truth-seekers who ask some questions that pique my curiosity, so I do a little research to satisfy myself and then try to point those folks in the right direction.

Answer 3

Depends, for me it's entertainment, and also just to see the massive amalgam of people's points of views..and kinda shows me if alot of my theories about people's behavior is true....you end up noticing trends in a lot of the questions asked and also the people's answers to them. It's just interesting to see such different views of opinion.

As far as the 'goal' of yahoo answers....i doubt you could really use these answers as 100% legit answers...i mean unless you had a bunch of people and like 80% of the answers were relatively the same...then yea it'd be pretty safe to say you can go with it..but these are coming from people with different backgrounds, views, information that could be scathed based on their source.

But then you think about how you get answers in life in general without this....most of your friends...parents..the news....aside from personal experience those are you main sources of information right there anyway so in essence this ends up being another convenient avenue to get answers from not just friends and family and the news..but from people around the world now...

Either way, whoever in the yahoo staff designed this is probably gettin mad money for it...just like tom and myspace.....people yearn for convenience...that's why all the billionairs are who they are....they made a convenience for people.

Answer 4

For some, it's laziness. (Too lazy to read the book or due the poem analysis.)
For others, it is a way to grab attention.
For some it is entertainment.
For me, it's boredom. When I'm uploading something that's taking forever, it gives me something to do.
And no matter how old we get, we always take child-like pleasure in racking more points...
Is any one reason more or less noble than the others?
Et tu, brut ?

Answer 5

its hard to see what Yahoo get out of it, I guess they accept it as a loss leader if it gets the yahoo company noticed. For the users its just something to do

Answer 6

For me entertainment