The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 43, October 9, 2005, Article 22

ASK ME NOW (IF YOU JUST CAN'T WAIT TIL LATER)

On October 5, 2005 article by Walter Mossberg in the Wall
Street Journal notes: "If you're one of those people who thinks
he's always right, but can't prove it on the spot, we might have
just the technology for you.

This week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I tested a new
service called AskMeNow that attempts to be like a digital
version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire's phone-a-friend.
This service works by answering questions of all sorts in just a
few minutes for free, or in some cases for 49 cents per question."

"Its concept is very straightforward: You send questions to
the service by calling from your cellphone or emailing directly
from a portable smartphone, and answers are sent back to your
phone or hand-held via Short Messaging Services (SMS) or
email within about a minute."

"To answer your questions, the company employs real people
who sit at computers in the Philippines, furiously researching
the Internet (using data from content partnerships) trying to
respond to your queries within three minutes. This doesn't
always mean the response is correct. It simply means that the
retrieved information was online somewhere. But our results
proved rather accurate."

"To start using AskMeNow, users must go to its Web site,
www.askmenow.com, to enter sign-up information including
your name, ZIP Code, country and cellphone number;"

We asked some tough questions like, "Where are the Rolling
Stones playing tonight in Washington, D.C.?" and "Why do
men have nipples?" But we got accurate responses to both.
Katie even tried a snarky question: Why are girls smarter than
boys? But the response just said that her question was
unanswerable due to editorial policy."

To read the full article, see Full Story

[So, any of you smarty-pants readers care to submit some
numismatic research questions and report back on the
accuracy of the results? Will the Phillipino research staff
come through? There is an awful lot of numismatic information
available on the web now. Ask the right question, and the
answer may be found in the E-Sylum archives. What is a
Panamint Ball, for instance? -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

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