Friday, March 30, 2007

Answers.com Releases Free AnswerTips Tool for Websites and Blogs


HTMLPrimer.comThursday, February 22, 2007; 07:32 AM
Answers Corporation, creator of Answers.com, began offering its latest webmaster tool, AnswerTips, to websites and blogs. AnswerTips allow sites to provide visitors with instant access to Answers.com's comprehensive information on four million topics, without having them leave the site or blog.
AnswerTips are a unique site feature and provide instant background information when a site's visitor double-clicks a word on an "AnswerTips-enabled" site. Activate an AnswerTip, and without leaving the page, a small information bubble opens, providing definitions, explanations, biographies, historical background and countless other types of relevant information. Unlike other offerings, the AnswerTip provides content on the spot, rather than a number of related search links to follow.
The free content in an AnswerTip comes from Answers.com's extensive database of information consisting of four million topics that are licensed from over 120 authoritative reference publications and other resources.
"It's about immediate gratification for anyone reading your blog," said Gil Reich, Vice President of Product Management for Answers Corporation. "Readers get the information they want while remaining engaged in reading your content. Fewer distractions create a better experience on a website, and they save the writer time providing background information on subjects and terminology that his or her audience might be unfamiliar with."
The technology behind AnswerTips yields a more productive user experience than a simple dictionary site or program. The tool has the ability to crack acronyms, quote stock prices and retrieve biographical information on everyone from rock musicians to political figures. Using patented technology, AnswerTips scans the text surrounding a word to retrieve the most appropriate information. For instance, it can differentiate between 'Paris Hilton' and 'plaster of Paris' when only the word "Paris" is double-clicked.
Currently, AnswerTips technology has been implemented on Answers.com, WikiAnswers (wiki.answers.com) and CBSNews.com, and was beta tested on a few select blogs and websites, including:
A VC (http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2007/02/this_blog_is_an.html) CleverClogs (http://www.cleverclogs.org/2006/12/instant_onsite_.html)
California Polytechnic State University Library ( http://www.library.calpoly.edu)
Write Technology (http://www.writetech.net/2007/02/answer_tips.html)
In addition to being available directly from Answers.com at: (http://www.answers.com/main/answertip_landing.jsp)
AnswerTips are also available within the widget gallery of TypePad at: http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/widgets/publishing-tools/answertips.html.
Other free tools from Answers.com include 1-Click AnswersTM (Windows, Mac OS X), which enables AnswerTips within all of your desktop applications, and the Firefox extension (Windows, Mac OS X and Linux). For more about Answers.com webmaster tools, visit http://www.answers.com/main/webmasters.jsp.
About Answers Corporation
Answers Corporation (NASDAQ: ANSW) operates the award-winning Answers.com(TM) information portal, delivering comprehensive content on four million topics spanning health, finance, entertainment, business and more. Content includes over 120 licensed titles from leading publishers such as Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group PLC, Barron's, Encyclopedia Britannica, All Media Guide and others; original articles written by Answers.com's editorial team; community-contributed articles from Wikipedia; and user-generated questions & answers from Answers.com's industry-leading WikiAnswersTM (wiki.answers.com). Founded in 1999 by CEO Bob Rosenschein, Answers.com can be launched directly from within Internet Explorer 7, Firefox and Opera browsers, and its service is integrated into sites like Amazon.com's A9.com, The New York Public Libraries' homeworkNYC.org, The New York Times, CBSNews.com and others. Answers.com is also available for mobile devices at mobile.answers.com. For investment information, visit ir.answers.com.

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