Q&A once again seems to be the in fashion. Following hot on the heels of Ask.com’s announcement about their return to the question and answers format, Facebook has launched a new feature called Facebook Questions in beta.
Facebook Questions will allow users to ask questions on any topic, to the entire Facebook community, as the question will not only be received by friends and friends of friends, but also by those who are known to have knowledge of the concerned subject.
Users will receive answers not only from their friends and friends of friends but also from a much wider and authoritative source, thus making this feature resemble a new aspect of their search service.
This feature will make Facebook compete not only with traditional search engines like Google and Yahoo! but also with other Q&A formats like Aardvark, Quora and Ask.com.
An “Ask Question” button will be available at the top of the homepage. The user will simply need to click on the button and then write a question. Users will also be able to attach a photo or a poll to the question.
In order to get the best results, users can also add an appropriate tag to the question, so that it is shown to specialists in that field. Users can also click ‘Follow’ under any question to get notified every time a new answer is received.
While questions asked through this service will be public, those who wish to ask a question only to specific friends, can put up the question as a status update on their profile marked to those friends.
Facebook may have to face a backlash once again regarding user privacy, as this feature will be public.
At present only about 1% of Facebook’s 500 million users will have access to this facility, and it will gradually be made available to all.
