I thought I was the hotness when I was hired as one of Google's first researchers for their then new-fangled beta site, Google Answers. The interview process was amazingly involved, and when I was offered the gig, I don't think I had been more excited about any job, ever before. After all, I was workin' for Google! I was good enough, smart enough, and doggone-it, Google liked me!
My mad research skillz were something I had honed throughout college, partly because I knew I lacked the technological know-how to land a career in "computers," but mostly because I found myself ever in awe of the mighty research bar, and how we have, at our very fingertips, the power to find the answer to virtually anything, and how that truly sets our society apart from any of our predecessors'.
Ah, the golden days of Google Answers ...
People turned to me when they had exhausted their own research faculties for questions usually entailing media, health, entertainment or education (my specific areas of expertise), though I would have a crack at almost any question posed ... so long as it didn't entail math. Best of all -- and really the only reason why I submitted myself to such -- was that I got paid! Askers would offer up a dollar amount -- how much they were willing to pay to have the question answered. A few dollars would procure a not-so-detailed answer, and triple digits would mean some major-mondo detail. A few dollars offered up for a complicated answer got ... nothing. Our answers were rated, and so the stratification was self-checking, which I really loved and admired.
Until ...
Hmmm, let's see here, now. Questions posed on a Web site where people answer. Sound familiar? Yahoo sure thought so. Yahoo figured something else out, too ... something Google should have known damn good and well. People L-O-V-E to know it all, and show you that it is so. People love it so much, their egos say, "hey, you don't have to pay me to spout off my opinion -- I'll gladly do that deed for free!"
And so Yahoo Answers was born. Within months, Google Answers folded. Damn you, Yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Then again, I have to say ... while I would definitely make a case any time for the caliber of answers produces by Google Answers' researchers, making the service a free one, where anyone -- and not just official, hired "researchers" -- has certainly expanded the breadth of questions that have been answered on this information-culling model.
Seriously, when in the midst of a "has-anyone-ever-possibly-experienced-this-strange-sequence-of-motherhood-events" moment at 3:17 a.m., I know I can turn to my trusty pal, Yahoo Answers, and find someone else that has experienced this very same thing. And that's nice.
I offer some choicest cuts ... questions answered by the most avid researchers: the general public!
Stinky Baby Feet
That's right. They smelled. Bad. Not so much anymore, but still! Good thing I found this, because I was worried that my boy's B.O. would increase proportionately with age, and that would be bad.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061121203331AAmAPsb
Yeah, we kiss and love on those piggies, but no one talks about the stench. Until Yahoo Answers, that is!
Nipple Confusion
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080721154340AAMQwsW
Would Kai mistake my nipple for a bottle or paci? I didn't think so ... something tells me babies are smarter than that, and while my search on Yahoo Answers led to more questions, it's somehow just nice to know that there were others grappling with this very notion.
Post-Partum Sex (or lack thereof)
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080823100126AAw93TQ
I incurred a third-degree tear. Enough said.
And speaking of, I know that opinions are just like the nether-region to which I tore during labor, and it's not that I trust what someone else thinks over what I'm pondering myself ... it's really just nice to know that you're not alone in this crazy, crazy world. It's nice to know that, no matter how unique your circumstance becomes, you can bet your bippy that billions before you have endured the very same thing ... and somehow survived to tell.