Answers.com is a Q&A website, which includes WikiAnswers and ReferenceAnswers. Launched in January 2005, the website is the primary product of the
Answers Corporation , previously GuruNet), an Israel-based Internet reference company with offices in New York City and Jerusalem, founded by Bob Rosenschein in 1999. The site supports English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Tagalog. WikiAnswers is a community-generated social knowledge Q&A platform, leveraging wiki-based technologies.
History
Answers Corporation was founded as GuruNet Corporation in 1999, to developed technology that intelligently and automatically integrates and retrieves information from disparate sources and delivers the result in a single consolidated view to the user. The company initially developed a software product, today know as 1-Click Answers, which was sold to users on a perpetual license base and later as an annual subscription.
On October 2004 GuruNet had an IPO on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol "GRU" and also acquired the Answers.com domain name early the same year for $80,000.
On January 2005 the company moved to a new business model, of a free-to-customer product, Answers.com and 1-Click Answers software, containing practically all the content that was sold via subscriptions. The new model is based on generating advertising revenue.
On August 2, 2005, the company's shares started trading on NASDAQ instead of AMEX under the symbol "ANSW".
On October 17, 2005, GuruNet changed its corporate name to Answers Corporation, unifying the company's name and its website, Answers.com.
From 2005 to late 2009, the Google search engine definitions feature, in the top-right corner of the site, was linked to Answers.com.
On July 2, 2006, Answers.com released a trivia game known as blufr.
In the fall of 2009, Answers.com launched a revamped version of their website, which combined wiki-style contributions with expert resources.
Staff
- Robert S Rosenschein, chairman of the board, president, chief executive officer
- Mark Tebbe, board member
- Steven Steinberg, chief financial officer, secretary
- Bruce D Smith, chief strategic officer
- Jeff Schneiderman, chief technical officer
Site statistics
As of August 2009, the site had the following ranking:
- Unique monthly visitors 56.4 million in the USA and 83.0 million world wide
- Rank in top Web properties:
- #13 in the USA
- #25 worldwide
