Yahoo! Answers

It was a year of Mike, moderation, and meetup. Celebs, stars, and Sweeps. Each month of 2007 brought captivating questions, absorbing answers, and continued improvements as we tweaked Answers to make it the most addicting site on the Web.

January

• Yahoo! Answers gets some serious media coverage when the blogosphere takes note of the good things going on here
• National and world leaders ask thought-provoking questions and the community responds

• With the introduction of a star rating system, community members can now flag interesting questions

February

• Yahoo! Answers team thanks the community for making Answers a great place to frequent

• Celebrities ask questions and respond to the jaw-dropping number of answers their questions receive

March

• Networking takes on a whole new meaning with Answers Network and members connect with each other as fans and contacts

• Top Contributors are acknowledged with a badge for their efforts and the little orange icons become the object of envy

• In response to community feedback, the Answers Team updates the Community Guidelines

April

• Kicking off Yahoo!’s commitment to go carbon neutral, company cofounder David Filo asks the Answers community for ideas

May

• As the community and its needs expand, new categories are added and quickly prove to be wildly popular

• The Yahoo! Be a Better Planet campaign offers Answerers the chance to win a fleet of hybrid taxis for their city and a compact fluorescent light bulb for their homes

June

• Ask Mike joins the community to ask, answer, and blog about the intriguing and oddball things he finds on Answers

• Businesses and nonprofits join the community to share their specialized knowledge in several categories

• Trolls and other unwanted visitors to a profile page are stymied with the introduction of the Block feature

September

• Librarians rally to Yahoo! Answers with high-quality, well-researched answers as part of their “Slam the Boards” grass-roots effort to respond to question-and-answer websites

• Yahoo! Answers Town Hall and Community Moderation launch and offer more power to deserving community members

• iPhones and Wired magazine subscriptions are given away to great Answerers during the Best Answers Sweeps

October

• The question page gets a new and improved look

• Answers goes mobile with oneSearch and members turn to their cell phones for an answer on the run

November

• D.C. Meetup brings members of the Answers team and Answers community together to share food, drink, and conversation

December

• Ask Mike highlights a small portion of the most unusual, interesting, and informative questions and answers of the year

• The year wraps up as more than 3,000 Q&A pairs have been featured in the Best of Answers area on the Answers home page and throughout the Yahoo! Network

• The Yahoo! Answers team and the community share stories about how Answers has affected their lives

Yahoo! Answers has grown tremendously in the past year and who knows what’s in store for 2008? What are some things you’d like to see implemented in the future?

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