Tag Archives: Bob Rosenschein

MediaPost finds Answers (.com)

What’s behind Answers.com? MediaPost’s Online Media Daily has the details as explained by Bob Rosenschein, founder and CEO  of the questions and answers site: Searching For Answers (.com)

Here’s a summary from this weekend’s article about Answers.com – what’s been happening and where we’re going in 2011:

  • The company provides licensed content from 250 encyclopedias and dictionaries for free. Two weeks ago, the company added the Random House Word Menu containing related words — not only synonyms, but concepts.
  • Both the user interface and the backend system will get an overhaul this year. An automatic reputation management system is in the works. It measures statistical factors such as capitalization and spelling to estimate the quality of a community-contributed answer.
  • A new user interface dubbed “Project Aqua” will roll out in the coming months. New social features will help users tie their Answers.com activity into their social graphs.

Read the full article at MediaPost.

Answers.com ranked 9th fastest growing in NY Metro Area.

Yet another reason to be proud of Answers.com‘s amazing growth over the past years:

Answers.com Ranked Ninth Fastest Growing Company in NY Metro Area on Deloitte’s 2010 Technology Fast 500™

Answers.com ranked ninth in the NY Metro Area on Technology Fast 500™, Deloitte’s ranking of 500 of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. The site also came in as the 10th fastest growing company in the Internet industry on the list. Rankings are based on percentage of fiscal year revenue growth during the period from 2005 to 2009. The site grew its revenues 910 percent during this period.

Here’s Bob Rosenschein representing Answers.com at the Fast 500 Awards Ceremony, with Mark Davis of Deloitte:

Congrats!

Students, technology, t-shirts, and… Answers.com.

This week, Answers.com CEO Bob Rosenschein spent some time chatting with over 100 visiting students/campers from across the United States. They were visiting as part of Camp Ramah‘s summer seminar in Israel – a program for 11th and 12th graders from across the United States exploring the country for six weeks.

Among the historical, archeological and traditional perspectives, the program wanted to share with its participants the technological view of the country; who better to give the verbal tour than Answers.com?

Bob’s talk included an entertaining history of the company, an introduction to Israeli technology and an inspirational word about making a difference.

And what more would a visiting student at Answers.com want, than some fashionable t-shirt-wear?

@AnswersDotCom at #140conf in Tel Aviv.

Wonder if I can keep this post to only 140 characters…

…nah.

Answers.com, or rather @AnswersDotCom, is hanging out with the Twitter community in Tel Aviv, sponsoring today’s 140 Characters Conference. The 140conf explores the ‘State of Now’ – a real-time look at real-time web. Speaking of real-time web – check out the conference live.

Bob Rosenschein spoke to the crowd on ‘Investing in the Real-Time Web’ earlier – take a peek (video to follow):

Bob Rosenschein addresses the audience at #140conf about sticking it out and evolving as a web start up.

Hearing from Jeff Pulver, the creator of the 140 Conference.

Answers.com is proud to sponsor the 140 Conference.

Answers on the Start-Up Nation.

Answers.com‘s Bob Rosenschein was in Los Angeles last week for The Israel Conference, an annual forum bringing together entrepreneurs and business professionals from California and Israel to explore mutual opportunities.

Bob spoke at the event, discussing the culture of Israeli start ups, including much of his own experience having started up his own company there in 1999. He also took a few moments to describe ‘that company,’ otherwise known as Answers.com. Among the topics covered were the site’s mission, product and latest news, including a mobile version and instant answers on Twitter.

Check out a video taken at the conference for Bob’s full talk.

Talking search and social at The Marker’s Com.vention.

The social life of the search engine: does it get any hotter than that?

At The Marker Com.vention (link in Hebrew), which took place yesterday in Rishon Letzion, Israel, Answers.com CEO and Founder Bob Rosenschein spoke as part of a panel titled, Search Engines: Steady State or a Gathering Storm?

The Answers.com CEO spoke about the necessary mix of search engine support as well as participation on social platforms. The future is one where Google is certainly still strong, but social media, including Facebook, are just as important.

Bob was in good company, as the other speakers on the panel included Yoelle Maarek, Senior Research Director at Yahoo! Israel; Arkady Volozh, Co-founder and CEO at Yandex; and Barak Berkowitz, Managing Director at Wolfram|Alpha.

Check out Bob’s take on the topic in the videos from the panel: Bob introducing Answers.com, discussing search and social, and describing the future of mobile search and apps.

WikiAnswers is still growing fast.

WikiAnswersIf you’re going to be #2 – why not be #2 after… Facebook?

Answers.com’s WikiAnswers was rated the #2 fastest growing U.S. domain in 2009, right after Facebook. And, hey, that’s ok, since Answers.com recently implemented Facebook Connect as an option for signing in.

Here’s a little more from the official announcement:

“…according to comScore data… WikiAnswers’ unique monthly visitor count in the U.S. grew 74%(*). This ranks WikiAnswers as the 2nd fastest growing domain in 2009, second only to Facebook.com, of the top 50 U.S. domains in December 2008.”

Bob Rosenschein, Chairman and CEO of Answers.com, said this about the growth:

“The site’s unique self- reinforcing growth coupled with the efforts of the entire Answers.com team, have once again brought Answers.com to the culmination of a very successful year.”

So for the millions of Answers.com contributors out there – treat yourselves to some chocolate! Even the tiniest edits are building on the amazing, global, growing, collaborative Q&A project that is WikiAnswers.

DLD ’10: Getting inspired in Munich.

DLD conferenceAnswers.com’s Bob Rosenschein is in Munich attending DLD this week, and there is nothing like a Digital, Life, Design conference to get us inspired.

A few such inspired moments were captured on digital film and are shared below.

First, ‘Disruptive,’ a panel with guests all involved in disruptive technologies that changed their respective industries.

Vardi, Wales, Zennstrom and Baker at DLD in Munich

This panel was moderated by Yossi Vardi, the father of Israeli high-tech and an angel investor inAnswers.com. The speakers included Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, Niklas Zennström, founder of Skype, and Mitchell Baker, founder of Mozilla.

Another noteworthy moment was when Mitchell Baker received the Aenne Burda award for outstanding female entrepreneur from last year’s winner, Esther Dyson.

Mitchell Baker receiving award at DLD in Munich.

Bob sat with Sharona Justman, who runs the annual Israel Conference in Los Angeles.

A quick chat between sessions… Hey, Bob, are you using Mobile Answers?

Getting inside innovation: the value of persistence.

Answers.com Founder and CEO Bob Rosenschein sat with a reporter at Intruders.tv at Le Web ’09 in December and offered his thoughts on the site’s healthy growth, successful business model, fabulous community, and… questions.com?

Watch the video… and skip to minute 6:12 for the Answers.com secret sauce. Hint: it has to do with the passion of the most unbelievable community around!

Inside Innovation: Answers.com at Le Web 09

Just in: financial results for Q2 2009.

Today Answers Corp reported its Q2 financial results.

You can check out more of the Q2 report here and listen to the conference call here.

For now, I just want to re-quote Founder and CEO Bob Rosenschein here:

“Answers had another excellent quarter, hitting record revenues… These results highlight the strength of our business model and the continued growth of WikiAnswers. According to comScore, even in the summer month of June, our combined sites reached 26.2 million unique U.S. visitors, putting us at #31. We are looking forward to launching the international versions of WikiAnswers, and we remain very upbeat about the rest of 2009.“

Read that last line?

WikiAnswers is taking over the world! Mwahaha!

Podcast about mobile with Bob Rosenschein

Peggy Anne Salz of MSearchGroove – a knowledge portal for mobile search, mobile advertising, social media and more – published her fabulous podcast interview with Bob Rosenschein, Founder and CEO of Answers Corporation, after hearing him speak at the ThinkMobile conference last week.

Bob spoke about the growing success of WikiAnswers.com, mobile search, mobile SEO and user experience among other topics.

Salz’s take:

In view of WikiAnswers.com’s increasing popularity, I decided to take a closer look at the company’s future roadmap. I caught up with Bob to get the inside track on his company’s mobile ambitions, discuss the key criteria for an optimal mobile search experience, and the role of mobile advertising in the scheme of things.

Listen to the podcast here:

Answers.com CEO Bob Rosenschein Warns Roadblocks To Mobile Advertising & Mobile Search; Mobile SEO Is Critical

Answers at ThinkMobile ’09.

Last week Answers Corp Founder and CEO Bob Rosenschein participated on a panel entitled, “Mobile Search and Mobile SEO” at the ThinkMobile Conference in New York City.

Answers.com offers a Mobile Answers version of the site and iPhone access. Bob spoke about mobile access as an important future component to Answers Corp offerings, especially on WikiAnswers.com.

Answers Corporation reports a successful year.

Some excellent news came out of Answers Corporation today:

Answers Corporation Reports Q4 and Full Year 2008 Financial Results
Q4 Record Revenue of $4.63 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $1.95 million

Answers Corporation… today reported unaudited results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2008.

“Answers is very pleased to report a milestone quarter and fiscal year,” stated Robert Rosenschein, Chairman and CEO. “Quarterly revenues rose 30% sequentially to $4.63 million, with Adjusted EBITDA reaching $1.95 million, and our cash balance increasing $2 million to $11.74 million.

WikiAnswers continues to be an amazing property. comScore ranked it the fastest growing domain for all of 2008, as measured by percent change in unique monthly visitors for the top 200 US Web domains. Answers’ financial progress is a testament to our focus on the product without losing control of expenses. We look forward to continued growth in 2009 – and to building our value proposition of providing our users useful, relevant, quick answers.”

For more, check out the full report or listen to the conference call.

WikiAnswers: setting the record straight.

Here’s a comment from Answers Corp CEO Bob Rosenschein:

We are admirers of Jimmy Wales but must set the record straight about the recent statement on Wikia’s site that he is the “founder of Wikianswers”.

Wikia’s Answers category is indeed one of thousands of wikis on its site, right between Ansible and Anthony Trollope. It started in November 2004 and had almost no activity for the past four years. By August 2007, the site had a total of 17 answers. By their launch last week, there were about 1,000. The site remains very small, despite their seeding thousands of unanswered questions last week.

In June of 2004, an entrepreneur named Chris Whitten bought the domain www.wikianswers.com. He pointed it to his user-generated Q&A site, then known as FAQ Farm. A vibrant community of passionate contributors formed and did a fantastic job answering questions. By the time Chris sold FAQ Farm and  wikianswers.com to us in November 2006, the site already had 280,000 questions and 200,000 answers. Shortly thereafter, we re-named the product WikiAnswers.

True to Chris’ vision, our goal is to create the world’s greatest question and answer site. We are well on our way, and the numbers tell the story best: over 8,000,000 questions (35,000 new ones every day); over 3,000,000 answers (10,000 new every day);

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16.5 million unique visitors in the US and 26.7 worldwide in December, according to comScore; over 2 million registered users; and over 500 volunteer supervisors.

We do agree with Gil Penchina, CEO of Wikia Inc., that “there is room for many organizations to be successful in organizing human knowledge.” However, Wikia is creating market confusion by associating its Q&A category with our market-leading WikiAnswers domain and site.

I would like to thank WikiAnswers founder Chris Whitten and the community that he started for their wonderful efforts building WikiAnswers. We have much to be proud of. According to comScore, by percentage growth, WikiAnswers.com was the fastest growing top 200 US domain for all of 2008.

– Robert Rosenschein
CEO, Answers Corporation

WikiAnswers at a new high point – more like a Redpoint.

Good news everyone!

Looks like we aren’t the only ones who love the idea of a wiki-based community-driven Q&A database, where anyone can ask, answer or edit questions and answers. There’s a new friend in town, and that’s Redpoint Ventures, a venture capital firm who believes in the WikiAnswers vision as much as the rest of us do.

Reuters already has the story here. The official Answers.com press release breaks it down like this:

Answers Corporation Announces Private Placement to Redpoint Ventures of up to $13 Million
WikiAnswers Exceeds Three Million Questions

“Through a transaction executed on June 16, 2008, Answers issued $6 million of series A convertible preferred stock, convertible into 1,333,333 shares of common stock at a conversion price of $4.50 per share, with 50% warrant coverage at an exercise price of $4.95. Additionally, Redpoint was issued a second tranche warrant, exercisable over the next 12 months, to purchase up to an additional $7 million of series B convertible preferred stock, convertible into 1,272,727 shares of common stock at a conversion price of $5.50 per share, with 50% warrant coverage at an exercise price of $6.05.”

Is that a lot of jargon for you? Let’s have a word from Answers Corp CEO Robert Rosenschein:

“We are extremely pleased with this strategic investment and validation of both our products and growth opportunity by a top tier Silicon Valley venture capitalist… With this partnership, we gain access to Redpoint’s team, connections and industry experience. The last public company they invested in was Intermix, parent of MySpace, subsequently sold to News Corp in 2006. We look forward to Redpoint’s valuable contribution and support.”

Damn! MySpace, eh? Thems pretty big apples. Speaking of apples, Allen Beasley of Redpoint (I’m sure he likes apples or something) had this to add:

“The Answers properties, but especially WikiAnswers.com, represent the type of high growth opportunity we look for. With over 11 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May, according to comScore, WikiAnswers is an emerging leader in the social knowledge space. We look forward to working closely with the company to help accelerate its growth.”

Check that out – Allen gets the social knowledge thing. What a great new force to have on board (literally, he’s joining the Board of Directors).

Well, this makes me feel so good I’m going to have an ice cream cone. I wonder if ‘awesome’ is a flavor.

Note: here are other places where the news has been mentioned:

paidContent.org

Washington Post

CNN Money

Triangle Business Journal

Barron’s Tech Trader Daily

Globes

Venture Beat

Red Herring

Market Watch

Is there a good social search engine?

For today’s WikiAnswers Wednesday question, I’m going to go for painstakingly obvious. I think it goes well with my hazel eyes.

Is there a good social search engine where one can search and have questions answered at the same time?

Hmm… While I work that one out, I’d like to bring up an article I just read on the Reuters site: Answers.com sees growth in wiki responses. It’s a quick exploration into where Answers.com, with WikiAnswers by its side, is going as discussed by some of its head honchos.

“Somewhere between Google Inc and the community-generated Wikipedia, reference website Answers.com aims to build a new growth model.

The site has found its millions of users are keen to get community-written bits of knowledge, known as wikis, alongside its trusted encyclopedia entries.” (source)

Gotta love that explanation. A lot of times, when I’m hanging out with people and they ask me what I do, and I mention WikiAnswers, and their faces get all crinkly like one of those mush-face dogs (see right), I explain it like this:

Me: “You know Wikipedia?”

Crinkly face: “Yes…”

Me: “You know how it’s an encyclopedia that anyone can edit?”

Crinkly face: “Ok…”

Me: “So WikiAnswers is a Q&A community, meaning it’s a giant database of questions and answers, contributed by people from all over the world and all kinds of experience. Everyone contributes a bit, creating one complete answer for each question. You can ask or answer anything you like.”

Crinkly face: “OoOOOOoOooOOOo…”

Back to the article:

“Both sites pull up answers based on a question posed by a user, compared with searches for individual keywords used on sites like industry leader Google.”

“Chief Executive Bob Rosenschein said the company would foster more “cross-pollination” between Answers.com and WikiAnswers.com, including a shared search bar.” (source)

Bringing the reference answers side together with the community-generated answers side sounds like a wonderful idea. It’s going to create a powerful force you might want to call a social search engine.

Hmm, so what was that WikiAnswers Wednesday question again?