With the move to the next upgrade – and a freemium Trip the notion of the Answer Engine appears again. I’ve talked about the Answer Engine for at least 4 years but previously I’ve never had the conviction that it’ll work.  The idea is great: infer a question from the search terms and show ‘the’ answer.

It’s because I like the idea so much I keep coming back to it. I’ve done a mock-up of how it might look.

I’m waiting to hear from one publisher about using their content. If they agree that I can re-use their content it’ll be thousands of Q&As ready to go and I’ll be ready to commit to getting it off the ground.

I’m also talking to other publishers about their willingness to participate. We get Q&As and they get their content in a prime position on Trip, a win:win in my book! Other than that I’ll be undertaking another user survey and will ask then if people want to volunteer to add a few Q&As. If everything falls into place we’ll have a reasonable chance of making it work!