I have been taken to the woodshed and throttled by none other than Danny Sullivan - King of Search.

Danny points out that Walter Mossberg has long been a fan of Answers.com and that the "Big Guys" (Google etc.) are getting better at providing direct answers to inquiries instead of mere links.

Danny's partner on his blog, Gary Price covered the history of Answers.com in this post of 3 Janaury 2005.

I still think Answers.com is pretty neat. And there is nothing like competition to spur on the noted Search companies to continuing adding great new services.