Answers.com staff are suffering major layoffs at the company at the hands of new owners AFCV Holdings. The company was bought out by AFCV earlier this year, despite shareholders’ complaints. More than half of the company’s Israel offices’ staff were fired, including CEO and founder Bob Rosenschein and CTO Jeff Schneiderman. Other effects of the shakeup include the end of services like 1-Click Answers and the company’s investment in some mobile apps. [TechCrunch]

“After an exciting six years as a public company, we are very pleased to achieve considerable value for our investors. This agreement is also a positive for our community members. The integrity and commitment of our company to our products remain unchanged, as we continue our mission of creating the ultimate destination for answers,” stated Answers.com Founder, Chairman, and CEO Bob Rosenschein. Answers.com is the second largest Q&A website in the world.

Answers.com attempted to buy Lexico properties last year, but the deal did not work out. The deal between Lexico/Answers.com was roughly worth $100 million, but Ask.com left the price of this deal undisclosed. The second most search term on Ask.com was dictionary.

Ask will use their technology to advance functionality on Lexico’s sites. Ask.com will be powering the search on these sites as well. Dictionary is a top key search on Google, Yahoo!, and Live too.

In related news, Barry Diller, CEO at InterActiveCorp has resolved his differences with Liberty Media Corporation. Liberty Media owns 30% of IAC and they wanted to spin off some of IAC’s businesses as single-tier businesses.

IAC/InterActiveCorp owns excite, MyWay, iWon, excite, Evite, Bloglines, Zwinky, insiderpages, CollegeHumor, GarageGames, Vimeo, Busted Tees, gifts.com, Entertainment.com, BagsBuy.com, Shoebuy.com, LendingTree, Match.com, Admission.com, and Ticketmaster.

Information Source:
[1] Associated Press:  Ask.com acquires Dictionary.com, other references by Michael Liedtke

As I’m writing this article, Answers Corporation has been fluctuating between $11.05 (low) and $12.90 (high).  The registration statement was filed, but is not effective yet^[2].

References:
[1] Answers.com Picks Up A Dictionary (.com) Priced at $100 Million
[2] Answers Corporation Files Shelf Registration Statement (Answers.com press release)
[3] paidContent.org: Answers.com Files For $140 Million Raise

“The acquisition of Lexico is a transformative event for us,” stated Robert S. Rosenschein, Chairman/CEO of Answers Corporation.  “We are excited about applying our experience in monetization to significantly increase Lexico’s 2008 revenues and EBITDA. Lexico’s suite of popular brands, steady direct traffic and loyal users are valuable assets that we believe will reduce our products’ reliance on search engine-driven traffic. Post-transaction, we estimate that over 70% of our total traffic will now be direct from end users or people searching specifically for the term ‘dictionary’ in search engines. Our combined size and available ad inventory should provide greater exposure among online media buyers, which we expect will lead to increased advertising sales.” 

By combining the web properties under the Answers.com brand, this would make Answer’s overall rank #2 in the category of Internet reference behind Wikipedia according to the press release.  Dictionary.com, Reference.com, and Thesaurus.com will join other Answers.com properties FAQFarm (acquired for $2 million in November 2006^[2]) and Blufr^[3]. 

Answers.com was launched in January 2005 and was previously known as GuruNet.  “Answers.com gets a lot of its content from Wikipedia, which they then use to generate advertising revenue. The site features a single search field, displayed prominently at the top of each page. User input is parsed using heuristics, which allows the site to display a selected list of possibly related pages that contain the search term. If the most-available mode is a dictionary entry, for example, Answers.com uses a dictionary data feed to supply the answer,” states Wikipedia’s description of Answers.com^[4]. 

“Likewise, if the most-available entry is a medical term, Answers.com displays its medical data feed, and if the most-available entry is an encyclopedia entry, Answers.com displays commercial encyclopedia data, along with information obtained from Wikipedia in its status as a mirror site,” continues Wikipedia’s description.

I did a search of George Bush on Answers.com and data was aggregated from Who2, Oxford University Press, Answers.com premium partner, Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press, Houghton Mifflin Company, and Wikipedia.  Perhaps we may start seeing some data aggregated by the 3 new properties that Answers.com acquired shortly. 

References:
[1] Answers.com
[2] Pulse 2.0: Answers.com Acquires Wiki Company, FAQ Farm For $2 Million
[3] Pulse 2.0: Blufr Beta: Don’t Get Bluf’d
[4] Wikipedia.org: Answers.com (Parsing method)

“The acquisition of FAQ Farm is the next logical step forward in our mission of becoming the leading online answer-engine, whether answers come from our existing library of licensed, branded, attributable reference titles, from the web, or now from a community of experts or interested participants,” stated Bob Rosenschein, the CEO of Anwers.com. “We aim to satisfy our growing dedicated user base by expanding beyond our strength in traditional reference material to embrace the community aspect of learning.”

FAQ Farm was founded in 2002 by Chris Witten. Answers.com will have Chris continue to maintain FAQ Farm and have FAQ Farm integrate the website’s content into Answers.com while adding Answers.com content to FAQ Farm.

“FAQ Farm will complement our encyclo diction almanac apedia of nearly four million topics by allowing users to ask questions or look up related answers on a specific Answers topic,” Rosenschein, “An interactive relationship can tap into the wisdom of many people and enable them to become part of something bigger.”

[Article Source: PaidContent]

Blufr is a trivia website created by the masterminds of Answers.com. You know how some people say that knowledge is power? This is a way to attain knowledge in a fun way!

On the homepage of blufr.com, you are poised with certain questions and the point is not to get bluf’d so you can earn points and become the über-bluf master. To start the game, start answering away at the questions. When you feel you are done, click on “Claim My Score” and then enter your initials and personal website. Your score has the potential to be in the top 20 scores, top blufs, and random blufs that are placed on the homepage. Users can also submit a bluf thus building the database of questions offered on the website.

“NO WAY!” “WAY!” These are the options that you can choose which are the equivalent of True and False. For the questions that you get wrong, you will not be awarded a point in your score tally. Also, if you get it wrong, then don’t feel bad because blufr also calculates the percentage of other people that got the question wrong.

Another amusing feature blufr has is “blufr face.” Right on the homepage, a random picture of a user with a funny face is loaded next to the blufr logo. Any user can take a picture and submit it to blufrfaces@answers.com. There are also options to embed your blufr score to your personal blogs or MySpace profiles as well. You can also embed blufr questions on your website or e-mail signatures.

Blufr is currently open to anyone. Registration is not required to play. Blufr’s openness and addictiveness will undoubtedly facilitate its viral growth. It’s a simple concept that works well to keep users engaged. Plus you learn something new each time you visit the site.