It appears that Google needs people afterall. It appears that over the weekend Google launched a new “small fee” service aimed at providing users with web research beyond “I’m feeling lucky”. From the Google-Answers site: “More than 500 carefully screened Researchers are ready to answer your question for as little as $2.50 — usually within 24 hours.”
Update: Let’s see if this works… I’ve coughed up my credit card & posted a question to the service at a grand bounty of $3.50 USD.
First, I put the bounty at $3.50 USD thinking this would be the most regular-joe would spend on such a thing before just doing the research him or herself, and I left the question a bit vague to see how they’d deal with this.
Better yet, let’s see how they compare to you. See comments below.
P.S. As a side note, Google may or may not do your homework for you, kids.
Well, can you beat “500 carefully screened Researchers”?
not a new feature
Google is just promoting their answers service now, it has been around since June. You'll find plenty of articles about it on the net, plus you can see the archive of thousands of questions already asked.
-a Google researcher
not a new feature
It's being promoted as a beta service too. I'd say that's new. To the public anyway.
Actually...
Google Answers launched in April, not June. And yes, Steve, I would agree that it's "new", even if it has been around since April.
--Missy
Google Answers Researcher