Q&A software

Q&A Software is online software that attempts to answer questions asked by users (Q&A stands for "question and answer"). Q&A software is frequently integrated by large and specialist corporations and tends to be implemented as a community that allows users in similar fields to discuss questions and provide answers to common and specialist questions.

There are numerous examples of Q&A Software in both Open Source and SaaS formats, including Qhub, OSQA and Stack Exchange. Standalone Q&A communities such as Quora or Yahoo! Answers aren’t traditionally in either category while operating in the Q&A market.

Q&A Software is often provided to corporate and specialist sites, so the site and its users can be asked questions as well as provide or receive expert answers to them. This kind of software is particularly useful for responding to questions regarding specific industries. Users may learn by regularly answering questions or exchanging views with other industry specialists using the website.

The development of Q&A software can be attributed to man's knowledge-sharing behavior, which can be traced back to 15,000 BC when humans started to use imagery to capture and record knowledge. Humans used written language, books, newspapers and other written media and databases as a major way to record and share knowledge.

In the late 1990s, a free online service called Answer Point provided by Ask Jeeves, was launched, allowing users to ask questions and with the help of other people, have them answered. The slogan of the service, "The Ask Jeeves Answer Point is the place where you can ask and answer questions. Have a question? Post it! Know the answer? Post it! ", indicated the main function of it, which inspired the creation of later Q&A sites. The last archived version of the Ask Point was from late 2001 when it still allowed registration.

Since then, more and more sites have begun to offer Q&A services. Google launched its Q&A service called Google Questions and Answers in August 2001 which used Google staffers to answer questions by e-mail. A flat fee (US$3.00) was involved for an answer. In April 2002, Google launched Google Answers, which allowed users to post answers to questions, to replace its predecessor. Google Answers cost askers $2 to $200 for an accepted answer. By late December 2006, it was fully closed to new activity.

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