New addiction: Yahoo Answers

Some companies will exploit just about anything about people to make a buck. Now, it's capitalizing on most peoples' inherent desire to be a bit of a "know-it-all" that lies behind Yahoo's recent addition of "Answers", a section that allows anyone to ask any question about pretty much anything, and Yahoo awards points, and subsequent bragging rights, to the people that answer the most questions, and even more points for having their answers being chosen as best. Like most things on Yahoo, it's free to participate, so that's a plus. One downside I've seen is the fact that you don't really know who you're answering, so you could be handing information to children or bad people, which in itself is bad. The upside to this is that Yahoo does monitor things pretty closely, and relies on its users to report things that could be construed as bad in several different ways. All in all, it's pretty fun. It's cool to be the first one to answer a new question, and even cooler to have your answer chosen as "best". What I've found most amazing is the tons of people who are asking the simplest questions...things they could look up on the internet themselves in a lot shorter time than it takes to get answers from perfect strangers! It's sheer laziness! But, as someone on there pointed out to me, there is that fun factor to consider. It's entertaining most of the time to see what kind of different answers can be given, and what sources people are citing for their information.

So, if you have any amount of urge to either show off what you know, or the speed to look it up for someone, this may be the place for you. As the title of this post reveals, I have found it to be slightly addictive, myself. Check it out!

http://answers.yahoo.com