This Blog Is AnswerTips Enabled

With the dustup over Snap Preview fresh in my mind, I have taken the step of adding more popup bling to this blog.

The new bling is called AnswerTips and comes from Answers.com, a former portfolio company of ours at Flatiron Partners. AnswerTips has been part of the company's bag of tricks since before we invested in them (called Gurunet at the time) back in early 2000. You double click on any word that you don't understand, and you get a popup that explains what that word means. Try double clicking on Arcade Fire in the previous post (or this one). You get a nice summary of the band, the band members, and their discography.

Probably the best thing about AnswerTips is that you won't get a popup unless you really want one. Mousing over a the word doesn't do anything. But the challenge with this model is that the only people who will know that this blog is AnswerTips enabled will be those of you who read this post.

I've added an AnswerTips logo on my right sidebar, but I doubt that's going to mean much to anyone.

In any case, I like the feature. It's non-obtrusive. And for those who know about it, I think it adds some nice functionality. I hope you agree.

Comments

[Erik Schwartz]

Now that's pretty cool.

It also follows the model of the web of if you want more information you click on something (as opposed to Snap).

Sweet.

[Andy Swan]

I like it. Maybe to get people using it, you as the writer could "mark" a word or two as you write the post (the words you think people might not know). Then, when we read the page there is a small super-script question mark after the word. When we click the question mark it says "click any word on my site for more info" and then goes into the meaning of the "marked" word/phrase.

That way you as the writer can take some initiative in getting people aware of the feature (and used to using it)

[John Pasmore]

File AnswerTip undeer "needs work" -- double clicked on "mousing" in the AnswerTip Post and got following response:

mous·ing (mou'zĭng)
n. Nautical.
A binding or metal shackle around the point and shank of a hook to prevent it from slipping from an eye.

[From MOUSE, a large mouselike knot on a rope.]

[ebrescia]

I was wondering who that band was, but didn't have the time/energy to Google them while reading your last post. The Answer Tips deal is very cool. There needs to be a better way to let people know it's available, though...

[Mike]

As somebody that regularly clicks for no reason while reading, just kind of a nervous habit, it is pretty annoying.

Also, while typing this comment, I double clicked a word to highlight it to delete it, and the popup poppedup. That's kind of annoying too. If you keep it around you might want to look for a way to have it ignored in the comment box we are typing in.

Also, I think all of these popup bling things work better if I use it as a plugin for my browser. Than if I want snap or answer tips, I can use it. If not, than I won't.

[Stephen L. McKay]

This one is a winner! Maybe under the badge in the side bar, a short exp. of what it is,and how it works will help with reader awareness.

[Marjolein Hoekstra]

I'm glad (and a tidbit proud) to see AnswerTips enabled on a couple more sites as of today.
The nice thing about AnswerTips is that you can double click right _inside_ the AnswerTip itself, making it a very contextually sensitive search tool.

Some resources with additional background information:

Launch on CleverClogs 2006-12-22: http://www.cleverclogs.org/2006/12/instant_onsite_.html

AnswerTips as a TypePad widget 2007-02-01: http://www.cleverclogs.org/2007/02/answertips_avai.html

Answers.com press release 2007-02-20: http://ir.answers.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=230374

[Derek]

I generally think these kinds of thing and in the past have found this blog only slightly less annoying than a MySpace page, but this is pretty cool.

Its kind of a shame it has to be enabled on a per site basis. Do they have a FireFox extension available?

[TheBillfold]

Ha - I tried it on the word "Mousing" in your post. Apparently "mousing" is a nautical term for "a binding or metal shackle around the point and shank of a hook to prevent it from slipping from an eye". Who knew? Pretty cool feature though.

[Barry Welford]

Thanks for bringing this up. I write some fairly technical material on Internet Marketing and this feature is superb. For me this is the post of the month of all that I'll read, which is saying something.

[jackson]

Very useful, now, maybe, I'll be able to understand what the hell you're on about when you use words like 'meme' that have no meaning to me whatsoever.

[jackson]

Very useful, now, maybe, I'll be able to understand what the hell you're on about when you use words like 'meme' that have no meaning to me whatsoever.

[Lloyd Fassett]

It's a way cool piece of functionality. It seems to me though that there is more and more tension between choosing an aggregator experience vs. site visitor experience. I usually read blogs through Newsgator because I can do it on my Treo while waiting in analog lines. The more things that get tied into the exclusive site experience the more reason I have to go to the site. Perhaps this will really play out in non-text communications? Perhaps aggregators will become more like bookmark lists?

[Altay]

Sounds great in theory, but am I the only one who's having problems with the bubbles?

They look really strange... seems like the CSS isn't loading properly.

[Michael Hoffman]

I think it looks great and it formats for me just fine. I used to be in the same building in Jerusalem as the folks from GuruNet and watched as they hired a ton of people, changed their business model from consumer (GuruNet)to enterprise (Atomica), back to consumer (Answers.com). They seemed to me at the time a solution in search of a problem. I hope that in these days of too much information, of search results that are less than useful, and of user-generated content/knowledge that they can find a profitable place. I am not at all clear on the business model, maybe you can say a little more about that. Is this something you would invest in today?

[Gordon]

I just added this functionality to my blog, which is a site for people interested in cheese. The AnswerTips is cool, but the underlying data might need some customization. Clicking on the word Parmigiano -- a pretty famous cheese -- pulls up information about the artist named Parmigiano.

Would be much cooler if Answers.com could provide site-specific content. So the term 'mousing' (see previous posts) would not always provide nautical info. And my cheese blog could offer food-related terms, not just one-size-fits all generic definitions.

Shameless self-promotion here: www.fatchancemedia.com (A Cheese A Day blog). Check it out if you're hungry.

[Philip James]

I have also followed Answers.com since they were GuruNet back in early 2000. I used to cover tech companies in Europe (and israel fell under that umbrella as well), so i knew them fairly well.

This latest tool is good - its very unobtrusive. the question will be, how will people know to expect it? Can you get stats on its usage by page?

The only issue i just found with it, is if i'm trying to highlight a block of text (to copy, or while posting a comment to edit the text for example) the answer popup appears, even though i obviously dont want it at that point.

Philip

[Daryn]

Very cool! This is my favorite _bling_ to date.

[chris]

Fred,

I like that the default requires a double-click on a term. But I had an idea: If a certain term on a certain page gets enough clicks (i.e., its CTR is statistically significant and high), then maybe that word could automatically start showing a very small, unobtrusive link or indicator to this answers popup, by default. And if the CTR drops again, it could disappear.

[Eric Marcoullier]

We had a similar problem with MyBlogLog -- how do you virally spread the word about something as invisible as stats? That's why we launched the Top5 widget and then the ClickTagging popup. Eventually we added a social component which made everything far more visible, but who knows the odd bling Fred might be sporting today if we were still desperately trying to promote the stats part ;)

[P-Air]

I've been a big fan of Answers.com downloadable app which you can pop-up on any word whether on a web site, a document or anywhere on Windows. It's nice to see them extend that functionality so Web sites can offer it up to those who don't have the app installed. I use it several times a week, just Alt-click on a word and there is the definition. Just hope they find some good biz models to keep cranking because their revs weren't looking commensurately good last time a checked.

[JL]

as one who prefers minimalism to this type of obtrusiveness, I'm just glad to be able to use that NoScript plugin for firefox.

[Charlie Crystle]

reminds me of Comet back in the day.

My problem is that I'm a habitual double-clicker. I had real trouble with our internal wiki when it was set to respond to the double-click, and I'm having trouble with this. But that's me.

When I intentionally double-click, it's cool, except it doesn't seem to do phrases that I highlight. Would be a nice feature.

Context, folks. all about the context.

[Graeme Thickins]

Surprised no one has commented yet on the "iReader" link preview too, a beta announced yesterday by Syntactica. Similar concept, but more to it. (It is a browser plug-in.) Richard MacManus of Read/Write Web wrote about it here yesterday morning.

[Graeme Thickins]

Surprised no one has commented yet on the "iReader" link preview tool, a beta announced yesterday by Syntactica. Similar concept, but more to it. (It is a browser plug-in.) Richard MacManus of Read/Write Web wrote about it here yesterday morning.