Late Tuesday night, Google announced that it was discontinuing its Google Answers "project".  While questions will stop being accepting later this week, answers to existing questions will continue to be accepted through the end of the year.  The questions and answers already at the website will continue to be available for an unspecified period of time.

Ok… so it's not really that strange that a company would discontinue a product or cancel a service.  Look at McDonald's:  the McRib is here… now it's gone… just kidding, it's back… oh no, gone again… and now we're back… you get the idea.  What is strange, though, is that no reason was given and no possible future use of the existing Google Answers technology was mentioned.  Not even a hint.

I believe there are two possible reasons Answers got the ax:

1)  Google is conceding to Yahoo! Answers

Yahoo! Answers is definitely alive and kicking.  In fact, just this past weekend Yahoo announced that Oprah Winfrey would be using the service as the hub of her latest charitable contest.  Ms. Winfrey used Yahoo! Answers to post the question:  If given $1,000 to help a complete stranger, how would you use it?  Details are available at the Yahoo! Answers Blog, but needless to say the service is getting a lot of use from this promotion.  Over 30,000 answers have been posted so far.

A few weeks ago it was William Shatner posting questions as Captain Kirk.  Last week I talked about Yahoo's decision to add it's Answers data to search results.  I don't have an ear inside the Yahoo offices… but for all intents and purposes, Yahoo! Answers is thriving.  Maybe Google decided it wasn't worth the effort to fight Yahoo?  Maybe Yahoo chose to give resources to their Answers service that Google just wasn't willing to match?  Maybe more people are using Yahoo! Answers because Google Answers cost money while Yahoo! Answers is free?

2)  Google is going to McRib us and reintroduce another service based on Answers

Maybe I'm selling Google short by suggesting they decided to bow out of the Answers market.  It's quite possible they have something else up their sleeves and are going to go the way of the McRib by reintroducing an either new and improved Google Answers or something completely different.  A project that ran as long as Google Answers did had to produce some usable technology, not to mention the content available from the existing questions and answers.  I wouldn't be surprised to see something else come of the defunct Google Answers.

Whatever the reason behind the decision, it should be interesting to see what happens next.  How long will the Q & A sessions already in place remain available?  Maybe Google will add the content to Base and then completely remove the content in question-answer format.

And maybe, just maybe… they'll do something completely different and new with it…