Yahoo! Answers Launches in Malaysia

Yahoo! announced the launch of Yahoo! Answers in Malaysia.  Yahoo! Answers is an online community where people can ask each other questions on any topic, and get answers by sharing knowledge in the form of facts, opinions, and personal experiences.

Yahoo! Answers is a free service, which is available in Malaysia at www.yahoo.com.my by clicking “Answers.”  It enables people to ask, answer and discover knowledge from Malaysia, or expand to see all questions and answers from the global community.

“Yahoo! Answers provides a new dimension for discovering knowledge on the Internet,” said Mr. Bradley Horowitz, vice president of advanced development division, Yahoo!.  “Yahoo! Answers provides the most relevant place on the web for people to connect to local knowledge in the form of asking everyday questions, while others participate by providing answers based on their personal expertise,” Horowitz added.

With the introduction of Yahoo! Answers in Malaysia, Yahoo! Search now combines both algorithmic search and community-based social search results based on the same user query.  Yahoo! Answers is designed to enhance users’ ability to Find, Use, Share and Expand knowledge online, which is especially useful in countries with fewer digitized searchable documents on the web.

Yahoo! Malaysia has also kicked-off an advertising and marketing campaign for Yahoo! Answers, which starts today with print and TV ads.  In addition, several Malaysian celebrities will post featured questions for the Answers community to suggest ideas and possible solutions.  Each week, starting today, a featured question will be posted to the community to inspire debate, discussion, and most importantly, to share ideas.  Each celebrity will choose the best answer out of the responses.

Today, the first featured question on Yahoo! Answers in Malaysia was asked by Ms. Yasmin Ahmad, a highly celebrated creative director and filmmaker.  Ms. Yasmin asked the Answers community to share ideas on how to nurture and support aspiring Malaysian filmmakers with the aim of gaining international recognition.

About Yahoo! Answers

Yahoo! Answers allows users to ask subjective questions in natural language.  In addition to providing social search services, Yahoo! Answers is alone one of the largest communities on the Web with over 90 million unique monthly users and 250 million answers worldwide.  It is now available in 20 countries and in 9 languages.

How does Yahoo! Answers work?

At Yahoo! Answers, users can:

• Ask: Questions to get answers from the Answers community.
• Answer: Open questions to share what they know.
• Discover: Resolved questions to find something new.
• Vote: On undecided questions to help choose the best answer.
• Thumbs up/Thumbs down: Answers to questions.
• Star: Interesting or favorite questions.
• Comment: On questions or answers.

Search and Question Search-Ahead: When users type in their question, Yahoo! Answers searches ahead by keyword/question phrasing and displays exact or similar questions just below. Users can view those questions to see if they have already found their answer before posting their question.

Category Top Answerers: When users click into a Yahoo! Answers top-level category, they see the category's “top answerer,” or user with the most “best answers” in that category.

RSS feeds: Yahoo! Answers users can display the latest questions in a category, subcategory, even the entire site as well as keep track of their favorite questions on their My Yahoo! and Yahoo! 360 pages.

Yahoo! Product Integration: Yahoo! Answers is integrated with other leading Yahoo! community products, including My Yahoo!, Yahoo! 360, Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger to allow users to connect and share real life experiences and advice with others that share similar interests.