Q&A: Windows Live Search Senior PM Justin Osmer

BetaNews: When the idea for your QnA feature was first parleyed at TechEd in Boston a couple of months ago, some of the Windows Live developers were trying to explain it, and there wasn't a consensus. When you say you're asking the community about something and you're judging their responses, and building up their reputation, exactly what's happening?

Justin Osmer: QnA is a reputation-based system that allows users to go in and ask and answer questions of one another, and then get reputation points for providing answers and answering questions. Over time, once that database of information builds up, that also could very easily be showing up in the Web results, very similar to the way that the Instant Answers are shown.

The opportunity that we saw here is to answer the questions that, frankly, no algorithm released today can answer. For example, I was coming back from a camping trip with family, and there was a Jeep getting towed behind a camper. My wife and I were talking about that, and she said, "Gosh, I wonder if the odometer clicks when you're getting pulled like that?" I said, "I have no idea," so I got to work on Monday, fired up QnA, tossed the answer in there, and literally later that afternoon, I had three answers to choose from, one of which had done some very specific research for me on how engines work and the drivetrain, how you put cars into neutral when you're towing them, and this sort of stuff. I was able to find out, the answer was, no, the odometer doesn't click over because the transmission isn't engaged and the engine isn't on.

All you need to have is a Live ID [a.k.a. Microsoft Passport] and then anyone can post a question in there, and anyone can provide an answer. Then what happens is, you as the question asker can go in and check the list of questions on a fairly regular basis, and select which one you think is the best answer, and other folks in the community come in and vote and say, "I thought this answer was good, but that one was better."

After a certain period of time - I think our current timeline is four days - that question and that answer will get locked down as the question and answer, so the next time somebody goes in and asks a question about towing a car behind a camper, chances are, my question will come up and, if that was the question they were going to ask, and they got their answer, they're satisfied. If it's not, they can ask a related question.

BN: So we're looking for resolutions here rather than just matches. If I went into a search engine, and typed, "camping Jeep odometer," I could get any number of things that don't actually pertain to something that resolves an issue in my head.

JO: Exactly. Then we introduce the reputation system in there to help encourage people to stay involved, but then also to get some pride in the fact that they're involved and they're helping. Over time, you can become a category-specific expert in technology or odometers, because we've introduced a tagging technology in there that allows you to tag your question, making it much easier to go in and find questions to answer, or to find answers if you're just looking for an answer.

You could go in there and say, "I'm going to look for all the questions that are related to beta technologies on the Web," and then you yourself could be in there answering those questions, and over time, become the de facto expert in that category because you've been the one that provided the most answers, and the community has voted them the best answers.

BN: That opens up an interesting question: There are any number of issues which I will unabashedly say I could resolve for people -- maybe not on the spur of the moment, maybe I'd want to do some background research -- but on an ordinary day, it's not something I have the time to tackle. It's going to be a hobby for some people, but if I were to answer certain issues for people, it could be on behalf of BetaNews, which would make me not only a resolver of problems but a de facto advertiser, would it not?

JO: Well, certainly in the user code of conduct, we make it very clear that you as a person are the one providing the answers, and you are not necessarily connected to any specific organization. We don't want spam in there, people going in and saying, "Oh, yeah, I'm an expert in x-y-z, and by the way, here's a link to my company."

We want to make sure there's a balance there, and certainly if you write on a number of topics, well read across the Web, people know who you are, they'll see your name and they'll get that familiarity, and they'll begin to trust you a little more than they would somebody else. From our perspective, that's just fine, because it just gives more credibility to the system.

There's also opportunity down the line for us to recruit experts -- qualified people who have accreditation or validation for what they're doing -- and build out these different categories or these different topic areas by making them even more robust with a certain level of expertise there. There's a lot of unique, interesting things that we can do with this down the line, and we're going to continue to try to evolve it.

BN: Would some of those evolutionary opportunities involve revenue generation besides advertising?

JO: Obviously, you never want to say never, but I think one of the things we most likely will not do is head down the path that Google and other folks have, and that is, "Give us some money, and we'll go chase down the answer for you. We'll go find the expert, and provide you back the information." I don't believe that is a path we will head down, but there are also all sorts of potential revenue opportunities for the community.

The other thing, though, that you have to be careful of: Some of the early feedback we got from the beta users was, "Don't pollute this with monetary incentives for people to answer questions, or to ask questions," because in some cases, that's a good thing, but in more cases, the community voted that it leads to bad intentions. There's a balance there, and it's something we're going to work through in time.

BN: Well, rather than the users paying for expert advice, I could see where certain people -- for instance, lawyers -- might want to pay Microsoft for the right to have a little bit of platform elevation, to say, "Maybe I don't have the reputation earned just yet, but hey, I have a degree, and [I have some cash]." Paid placement is not necessarily an evil thing, is it?

JO: If done in the right way. That's obviously a very sensitive issue, especially when you're talking about search results. We'll see where it heads. It's a very interesting, fast-growing area of Web search, and we're excited to be in it.