When the search engine juggernaut reported that it planned to permanently shut down its Google Answers site in late November 2006, the folks at Yahoo! were delighted that they need not to face a potential rival. However, it seems like Google is back again to fight for market share for the question and answers realm of the Internet.
Google Blogoscoped said one of his readers noticed a mysterious service on on his Google account services page. Known as “Guru” with a tagline – “Ask questions and get answers from online users”, it appears that Google is relaunching Google Answers as Google Guru, with plans to challenge the likes of popular social Q&A platforms such as Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers, and AnswerBag.
At the point of writing, Google Guru, which points to http://guru.google.com/guru/, is not available yet. Meanwhile, Google Thailand has a site which provides similar-sounding Q&A functionality, and apparently, its URL (http://guru.google.co.th/guru/) is very close to Google Guru. Should we except a similar site but in English version? And will Google acquire social search service Aardvark for $30 million to help them steal dominance from Yahoo! Answers, which currently has a market share of 74.05 per cent?
Google Guru (Thailand)
