Answers.com -- new free reference search service from GuruNet

A search engine that gives you quick facts instead of a long list of links.

By Lars Våge

(January 9 2005) Until now the GuruNet reference search service has only been available to subscribers who pay US$ 30 a year. On Answers.com the very same service is available for free.

"We expect to generate revenues as many search engines and content sites have done successfully, with ads and sponsored links," says GuruNet CEO Bob Rosenschein.

Answers.com is neither a natural language search engine nor a question answering service with humans answering the questions.

You simply write your query and in stead of links to web sites, you are offered excerpts from trusted online reference sources.

In this respect Answers.com works like a meta search service.

If you have used free reference search services previously, you will probably recognize some of the sources. For instance, if you search for Sweden, you receive answers from Columbia Encyclopedia, CIA World Factbook, some encyclopedias, WordNet and now even Wikipedia.

You get the Swedish text to the national anthem, exchange rate for the Swedish currency Krona, the local time in Sweden, international phone access code and more.

In my opinion it is a good idea to go to Answers.com in stead of a regular search engine if you are looking for reliable facts.

GuruNet has been developing their software for reference search since 1999 and is now a traded company. They are giving up the subscription model because they have decided to try to get their revenue from sponsored links and advertising like other major search services.

At the moment of writing all of my searches bring up one sponsored link only and that it is to the American Red Cross’ fund raising efforts for the benefit of the victims of the tsunami in South Asia.

You can now also download GuruNet’s software 1-Click Answers for free. It enables you to highlight a word in your browser or in other programs and Alt-click to do a search on Answers.com.

According to CNET News.com GuruNet had to pay US$ 80,000 for the answers.com domain.

We had a look at GuruNet's latest financial quarterly report, and found that they have indeed paid US$ 82,000 for the domain name. The payment will be made over a period of 10 years.

See also: Answer Directory
FAQ Using Answers.com
Gurunet launches Answers.com (press release)

This article was originally published in Internetbrus, a Swedish blog on search engines and Internet searching that has been online since early 2001. It is written for both searchers and educators.

Internetbrus is owned and edited by Lars Våge and Lars Iselid. Lars Våge works as a librarian at Mitthögskolan and a programmer for JL Informationsteknik. Lars Iselid is a librarian at the Umeå University Library, freelance journalist for the computer magazine Datormagazin, He can be found blogging under the pseudonym Cyrille at Iaslash.org.

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