danny sullivan from searchenginewatch reports about google's announcement that it is shutting down google answers.

there are a couple of things that are interesting here:

a. google is not invincible - with google stock hitting $500 and hype that just continues to build it is easy to see google taking over the universe. but this failure i think brings a lot of hope to small start-ups, entrepreneurs and product managers in yahoo, msn, aol… google can be beaten.

i can already see the above chart appearing in the powerpoints of entrepreneurs looking to raise money or answer the inevitable questions from investors "but what if google decides to do it?", or "google already does something quite similar".

google has become the microsoft of the 90s in that regard. back then the questions were the same, just the big invincible company was microsoft.

b. yahoo! can still put out a good product - i am not a fan of yahoo! answers, or any other answers service for that matter (i am usually looking for instant gratification when searching, and don't want to wait for a human to come up with an answer). but i did try out yahoo! answers when it launched, and saw how it could be successful and hit a nerve for some people.

it is encouraging to see yahoo! being able to be aggressive and innovate. i'd like to nominate the product manager/head of business unit for a fat bonus

c. google is mature enough to shutdown failing products - deciding to shutdown a business unit requires some level of maturity. and it is nice to see that google can admit failure. still i think they are probably a couple of years away from a "peanut butter manifesto"