“Ten Nobel laureates gather with you on Yahoo Answers”
"If you have any questions, go to Yahoo!"
"Yahoo Answers, a no-barrier knowledge Q&A community"
In the second half of May, Yahoo ads can be seen on roadside billboards throughout the Los Angeles Bay Area.
It has been almost two months since Quora was launched. In the meantime, some knowledge question and answer communities developed by Internet companies have also been launched. However, due to the lack of reputation of these Internet companies, it is difficult for the knowledge and question and answer communities developed by these Internet companies to pose a threat to Quora.
Yahoo is different. It has the largest entrance to the world's Internet traffic. Yahoo's Yahoo Answers has already put a lot of pressure on Quora even before it is launched.
Quora's internal employees have been vocal about whether to open up permissions to all users, at least to some extent.
Jimmy Wells and Larry Sanger suppressed this voice: "If we open up some permissions now, it will offend our core users. Users who have worked hard to gain permissions, they will how to think?"
But this does not mean that Quora will not fight back. On the eve of the launch of Yahoo Answers, Quora Encyclopedia was launched. After Quora Encyclopedia was launched, it also gave users another path to unlock Quora permissions.
Yahoo's campaign is not limited to roadside ads and TV ads. Jerry Yang himself participated in a TV talk show hosted by Charlie Rose. This program is a comprehensive program, and Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Elson and others have all appeared on this program.
"Let's welcome Jerry. Jerry is also an old friend of ours. When Jerry participated in the "60 Minutes" program not long ago when Yahoo was founded, I was the director of the program at that time.
This time Jerry participated in the Charlie Talk show. I believe Jerry had a lot to say. The pressure Newman put on him was really too much. Jerry, you can use our show to relieve the pressure.
Sometimes it's better to just talk about the sad things. "Charlie Rose looked sly and joked that the guests on the show are an indispensable part of the talk show.
Compared with other Internet founders, Jerry Yang prefers to participate in TV talk shows. TV talk shows he has participated in include "60 Minutes", "Squawk Box", "Charlie Rose" and so on.
Jerry Yang said helplessly: "Charlie, don't say that, Newman and I are friends, and their products are not directly competitive with ours.
The Riot Games Community homepage link is still on the Yahoo homepage. We have a certain degree of competition, but it is a healthy competition.
The healthy competitive relationship between us and Newman can bring more and better products to Internet users. "
Charlie Rose didn't believe this. He also knew that the audience in front of the TV would not believe this. He knew exactly what the audience wanted to hear: "So you are friends, and then Newman launched Quora. Not long after, Yahoo Launched Yahoo Answers?”
Regarding these questions, a list of questions will be given to the guests before going on the show so that they can prepare in advance.
Truly unprepared talk shows are extremely rare.
Therefore, Jerry Yang seems confident: "There is no rule that says who comes up with a certain product, and then others cannot make similar products. For example, we have made portals and search engines, and Microsoft is also making portals.
Baidu and Google, which Newman invested in, are both making search engines. Many people like to compare the Internet to a piece of cake. Everyone is vying to eat this piece of cake. If you eat more, I will eat less.
But judging from the Nasdaq Internet Index, we are obviously not competing in the cake category. I think we are all captains of the ocean, leading the fleet to sail on the ocean of the Internet.
Newman discovered many good waterways, but this does not mean that we cannot take this waterway.
In addition, the reason why Yahoo has established the Yahoo Knowledge Q&A community is that the high threshold set by Quora naturally excludes the majority of users. We hope to provide additional options for these users who do not have the opportunity to use the main functions of Quora. "
Jerry Yang likes to match his gestures when talking.
Charlie Rose nodded frequently, and then asked: "I agree with what you said, just like John Freeman made the world's first TV talk show Face to Face, this does not mean that other TV broadcasters can't do it again. It’s a TV talk show.”
Jerry Yang: “Yes, and Yahoo Answers will definitely be a very different product.
I don’t deny that our creativity was borrowed from Quora. Newman is definitely the best product manager, and Quora is the best product form in recent years.
Yahoo Answers is open to everyone, and we have invited more than a dozen Nobel Prize winners to answer users' questions. We will invite more experts and scholars in the future.
At the same time, we also invited celebrities from all walks of life and so on.
Yahoo Answers has also launched an exclusive badge system. Although Quora also has a badge system, our badge system is completely different from theirs and is used to reward excellent answerers. "
In order to reward users who pass the exam, Quora will give users who pass the exam a golden badge. The icon above means the field in which he passed the exam.
Such badges can only be owned by users who have passed the exam. After passing the exam in a certain field, users can continue to take exams in other fields. For example, if he gets a badge in the computer field, he can also take exams in history, politics, economics and other fields.
This kind of badge is not available to users who have registered accounts using internal beta verification codes.
The badge mechanism caused some internal beta users to take the exam just to get a golden badge.
“So I can understand that the top of Yahoo’s Q&A system are experts and scholars in various fields. They represent authority and are invited by Yahoo.
Then there are the badge winners in the middle. These excellent question answerers form the backbone of the trivia community, and at the bottom are all ordinary users who provide sources of questions. "Charlie Rose concluded for Jerry Yang.
Charlie Rose is also a user of Quora, and a beta user. Before interviewing Jerry Yang, he had thought about the advantages and disadvantages between Yahoo Answers and Quora.
In his opinion, Quora is already a very mature product. From the perspective of a product manager, it is difficult for him to make optimization suggestions. He is curious about how Yahoo Answers can reflect its own advantages.
It’s hard to beat Quora just by opening registration rights to all users.
Charlie Rose once asked some of their colleagues who did not have Quora accounts, and they all said that even if they could not ask questions, they would still go to Quora habitually.
Especially after Baidu was embedded into Quora, your question has actually been asked before.
Instead, the invitation of Nobel Prize winners and the badge system made Charlie Rosen’s eyes light up. The former hints to users through authority that we are a knowledge question and answer community with enough high-quality answers, while the latter gives rewards to ordinary users to stimulate them. Answer with positivity.
Quora's badge system is very simple and can only be obtained when passing the exam.
Of course, we still don’t know what the badge system of Yahoo Answers is like.
Jerry Yang pushed up his glasses: "You can roughly understand it this way.
Only those who are good enough can enter Quora. Yahoo Answers gives ordinary people the opportunity to participate in the knowledge question and answer community. "
Charlie Rose continued: "Jerry, do you think Yahoo Answers can beat Quora?"
That's a tough question, especially on a TV show where these words are recorded.
Jerry Yang tried to avoid this topic: "I think there are still many differences between us and Quora. We just borrowed the mechanism of Quora users asking questions and users answering.
In addition, Yahoo Answers has many original features. "
Charlie Rose didn’t give any face, and America’s talk show was much more unfriendly than China’s talk show: “Isn’t the core logic of the trivia community just questions and answers?
This is like you telling me that Toyota cars and Ford cars are only similar in driving, but they have many differences in the interior.
Jerry, this is not a reason to convince me. You cannot convince me, let alone the audience in front of the TV. "
Jerry Yang paused for a moment and said: "I think we can defeat Quora, and defeating Quora has never been Yahoo's goal.
Yahoo has always been committed to becoming a new global Internet media company. Yahoo's goal has always been to provide more users with better content. "
Charlie Rose captured the part of Jerry Yang's words that he wanted to gain: "Director, cut out what Jerry said just now that they can defeat Quora, and use it as the opening of our program.
Next time Jerry comes to our show again, show it to him. "
Then Charlie Rose turned to Jerry Yang: "You just said that you and Newman are very good friends. How did you meet?"
Jerry Yang: "You know, we are all Chinese, and we all started businesses in Silicon Valley. We will have some common friends and we will get to know each other easily.
He is a person who has his own ideas. As early as when he created Riot Games Community, I wanted to cooperate with him. At that time, I said that if he was willing to sell Riot Games Community to me and he was willing to join Yahoo, I would Willing to exchange Yahoo stock. "
Charlie Rose: "So you realized then that Newman was a rare talent?"
Jerry Yang: “Yes, Silicon Valley has always been a paradise for entrepreneurs, and I know a lot of entrepreneurs here, including myself as one of them.
Before I met Newman, the entrepreneurs I came into contact with were all out of love. We thought there were opportunities in a certain field and users might need products in this area, so we started businesses to meet the needs of users.
Almost no one has an idea of how to make money before starting a business. Even for Yahoo, I expect we will be profitable this year, but we were still in the red last year.
Newman is different. He had already thought about how to make money from this Internet model when he started his business.
Taking the Riot Games community as an example, he has long thought that the Riot Games community is an auxiliary to the Riot Games distribution channel. Game distribution is profitable, and the game community acquires users. This is a complete set of mechanisms.
He is a rare genius, both in the product field and in the business field. "
Charlie Rose asks: "Can Quora be profitable?"
(End of chapter)
