Answers.com has just started offering AnswerTips to websites and blogs. AnswerTips allow sites to provide visitors with instant access to Answers.com’s comprehensive information on four million topics, without having them leave the site or blog.
If you want to take a look at how it works, I’ve just implemented it on my blog here. Double-click any word and you’ll see how it works. Pretty cool.
AnswerTipsTM are small information bubbles that define any word when double-clicked. An AnswerTips-enabled site or blog means visitors get fast facts on 4 million topics provided by Answers.com when they double-click on any word, without opening a new browser or following outbound links. AnswerTips deliver instant definitions, explanations and facts including biographies, tech terms, geography, pop culture and much more.
Here’s more from their press release today:
AnswerTips are a unique site feature and provide instant background information when a site’s visitor double-clicks a word on an “AnswerTips-enabled” site. Activate an AnswerTip, and without leaving the page, a small information bubble opens, providing definitions, explanations, biographies, historical background and countless other types of relevant information. Unlike other offerings, the AnswerTip provides content on the spot, rather than a number of related search links to follow.
The free content in an AnswerTip comes from Answers.com’s extensive database of information consisting of four million topics that are licensed from over 120 authoritative reference publications and other resources.
The technology behind AnswerTips yields a more productive user experience than a simple dictionary site or program. The tool has the ability to crack acronyms, quote stock prices and retrieve biographical information on everyone from rock musicians to political figures. Using patented technology, AnswerTips scans the text surrounding a word to retrieve the most appropriate information. For instance, it can differentiate between ‘Paris Hilton’ and ‘plaster of Paris’ when only the word “Paris” is double-clicked.
Currently, AnswerTips technology has been implemented on Answers.com, WikiAnswers (wiki.answers.com) and CBSNews.com, and was beta tested on a few select blogs and websites, including:
A VC, CleverClogs, California Polytechnic State University Library, and Write Technology are a few that are using AnswerTips besides my blog here.
In addition to being available directly from Answers.com at: (http://www.answers.com/main/answertip_landing.jsp)
AnswerTips are also available within the widget gallery of TypePad at: http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/widgets/publishing-tools/answertips.html.
Other free tools from Answers.com include 1-Click AnswersTM (Windows, Mac OS X), which enables AnswerTips within all of your desktop applications, and the Firefox extension (Windows, Mac OS X and Linux). For more about Answers.com webmaster tools, visit http://www.answers.com/main/webmasters.jsp.