Curioser and Curioser

"Leaks" (yeah, right) about another new Microsoft Live service: Windows Live QnA, going, er, live soon. What's curious is that this is a version of Google Answers that is entirely open and democratic. In other words, it's a kind of cross between Wikipedia and eBay, where anybody can answer, and people rate the answers using a reputation-based scoring system. But wait: isn't Wikipedia discredited these days? Has anybody told Bill about this communistic stuff?

(And just look at all the Windows Live Betas coming through: wow, Microsoft is really moving here.)

The Amazing Amazon Mechanical Turk

OK, so I may be well behind the times, but I still found this rather amazing when I came across it. Not so much for what it is - a version of Google Answers - but for the fact that Amazon is doing it.

Google I can understand: its Answers service is reaching the parts its other searches cannot - a complement to the main engine (albeit a tacit admission of defeat on Google's part: resorting to wetware, whatever next?). But Amazon? What has a people-generated answer service got to do with selling things? Come on Jeff, focus.

Cool name, though.