Speaking of question and answer, I have a one: Is there room for all of these approaches to delivering answers to users’ questions?  When people find the answers they’re looking for, that’s it; they don’t have to ask the question again and again. That is just the nature of Q&A. Can you really imagine the majority of users posting their questions to FacebookFacebook, FormspringFormSpring and Quora?  There are going to be winners, losers and niche players in this rapidly-evolving market. Specifically, I believe there will be two verticals of the Q&A market, each one ripe for domination: Community Q&A and mobile Q&A (a.k.a the “I need my question answered RIGHT NOW” market). While there will be a lot of heated competition in the coming months, Facebook and Apple are in the best positions to dominate community and mobile Q&A respectively.  There are dozens of contenders for the Q&A market, and I simply cannot profile them all. However, I did want to point out some of the key players, some of which you know well, a few you probably don’t, and one or two that you probably didn’t expect. These are the key companies that already have market share in the Q&A space or have innovative technology that could quickly make them contenders.  Google: The search giant took a stab at this market back in 2002 when it launched Google Answers. Unlike Yahoo! Answers, questions were answered by experts and researchers, but it could cost as much as $200 for an answer. Not shockingly, it folded in 2006.  Google got back into the game earlier this year though with its $50 million acquisition of AardvarkAardvark, a social search service that allows users to submit questions and receive an answer from topic experts within seconds or minutes. Currently, Aardvark is a Google LabsGoogle Labs project, but it could become an integral part of AndroidAndroid or even Google SearchGoogle search if Facebook or Apple gain momentum in this market.  Quora: Founded in 2009, Quora is a Q&A startup that boasts a stellar team, major buzz and $11 million in funding. One of its founders is Adam D’Angelo, the former CTO of Facebook.  Quora is a Community Q&A service with a slick interface, a slew of features to surface relevant questions and answers and some high-profile users, including venture capitalists, startup founders and tech luminaries. Facebook Questions incorporates some of Quora’s best elements though; is there room for both?  Apple: Apple builds computers and mobile devices; why would it be included in a list of competitors for the online Q&A market?  Siri is an iPhoneiPhone app that essentially transforms your phone into an automated personal assistant. Give it a voice command such as “Get me movie tickets for Inception at 10 p.m.” or “What is the address for the Googleplex?” and Siri will pull up the relevant information. Its technology is based on the CALO Project, the largest artificial intelligence project in U.S. history.  Apple acquired Siri in April with the rumored acquisition price somewhere in the $200 million range. Spending that kind of money means Apple has some serious plans for Siri and its technology.  If you want to become a master of mobile Q&A, it’s best to have control of a major mobile platform. Even a popular iPhone or Android application doesn’t have the reach of Apple, RIM or Google.  That’s why the battle for mobile Q&A will take place between Apple and Google and their respective mobile platforms. Both have reach and both have users, but while Google has cool mobile products like Google Voice Actions and is the proud owner of Aardvark, they are nothing like the technology packed into Siri.  As I explained before, Siri is based on the AI technology of the CALO project. Because it’s an AI answering questions and not a community of users, answers are almost instantaneous. While Aardvark is surprisingly quick, it can still take several minutes to get the answer you need — an eternity if you’re on the road and need that address right now.  Siri will be integrated into iOS in the near future, and it will become a central feature of the platform because of its ability to help users search by voice for the answers they need. Bet on it.  I’ll start out with this: I think Quora has a better interface and higher quality answers. I also think Yahoo! and Answers.com have strong legacy SEO (if not the highest quality answers), so they will be around for a while. But when people have a question about the best graphing calculator to buy or the top five places they should visit when they go on vacation to Peru, they’re going to turn to their Facebook friends and the social network’s 500 million users.  Facebook just has too many advantages. Whenever someone asks a question, it appears in friends’ news feeds. Whenever someone answers a question, it pops up in your notifications; that answer then appears in their friends’ news feeds. News Feed is a viral powerhouse that Quora, Ask, Yahoo! and even TwitterTwitter can’t claim or duplicate.  Quora will have a tough time scaling to the size of Yahoo! Answers when it has to compete with Facebook (though I think it will carve out a nice niche). Yahoo! and Answers.com just don’t have the technology or the engineering talent at the disposal of Facebook. Ask.com’s revamp, while impressive, still has to compete with the virality of Facebook’s social graph and News Feed. It’s Facebook’s market to win.  While Facebook and Apple seem to be in prime position to be the dominating forces in the Q&A market, there is a wild card that you should be watching: Google, or more specifically Aardvark.  If Google scales Aardvark (say, with direct integration in Google Search) and more people prove willing to answer questions, then it could instantly become a contender in both mobile and community Q&A. Imagine getting instant answers via text from a search query you performed on your phone, or if Google integrated Aardvark into Google Chat or its rumored Google Me social network. There are near limitless possibilities, depending on the quality of the execution.  For now though, Aardvark remains dormant, so I can’t call it a contender until Google reveals its plan for the service. The Q&A market is filled with unanswered questions (pun intended), but we’re going to have to wait a while before they get answered.  - HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Q&A Sites - 15 of the Funniest Facebook Questions [PICS] - How News Consumption is Shifting to the Personalized Social News Stream - Why Entertainment Will Drive the Next Checkin Craze - 5 Social Fundraising Alternatives to Facebook Causes  Image courtesy of iStockphotoiStockphoto, talaj
The Q&A market is on fire, but is there room for so many contenders? Here's a look at why Facebook and Apple stand the best chance of coming out on top.