Google Answers China
Answers August 20th, 2007 - By Haochi
Google today launched another questions-and-answers service, Tianya Wenda*, in cooperation with Tianya Club, one of the most popular Internet forum in China. Although the service is (currently) not located under Google’s domain, but it’s running on Google’s web servers and is using the very same back-end program that powers the recent launched Google Otvety - only in Chinese rather than in Russian. (though you cannot use your Google account to log in)
Quite obvious that Google is taking baby steps to compete with Yahoo! Answers and other knowledge market services. Taking the battle oversea at first to learn experience then have a final show down here in the U.S.
There’s a saying that “A battle lost, but not the war.” (I am referring the lost battle to Google Answers)
Brilliant!
*Wenda, or Wen Da, means “Ask and Answer” in Chinese.
UPDATE: It seems like that Google acquired 60% of Tianya, a few hours ago.
[via China Search Engine View]
August 20th, 2007 at 3:12 am
wenda is ask and answer?, short of words those Chineses.
August 20th, 2007 at 4:56 am
I like baidu known better
August 20th, 2007 at 5:33 am
It seems they’re somehow using the Knowledge Search “cf” Google Apps login along with a SAML request:
https://www.google.com/a/tianya.cn/ServiceLogin?service=cf
Just check the URL parameters when you click this sign in link in the top right:
http://wenda.tianya.cn/wenda/loginredirect?continue=%2Fwenda%2F
(Also posted here.)
March 6th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Any idea when this service will come to English-speaking countries? I’ve poked around in the Russian version (Otvety) using Google Translate, but I have to revert to the Russian interface to do anything and have it tied to my account.
I even posted an answer for a question last December, written in English and translated into Russian. I just might learn Russian so I can use Otvety, since Google doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to launch a similar service in English.