• Search Engine Land
  • Sections
    • SEO
    • SEM
    • Mobile
    • Local
    • Retail
    • Google
    • Bing
    • Social
    • Home
  • Follow Us
    • Follow
  • Search Engine Land
  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Mobile
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social
  • More
  • Events
    • Follow
  • SUBSCRIBE

Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land
  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Mobile
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social
  • Newsletters
  • Home
SEO

Sign up for our daily recaps of the ever-changing search marketing landscape.

Note: By submitting this form, you agree to Third Door Media's terms. We respect your privacy.


Google buys expert community and ‘answer engine’ Superpod for $60 million

The speculation is that Superpod founders and assets will be used to improve Google Assistant.

Greg Sterling on January 4, 2019 at 5:44 pm
  • More
SuperPod bought by Google

Credit: Superpod.io

Google has acquired another “answer engine.” The company paid roughly $60 million for Superpod, predominantly for the team, according to published reports. Superpod matched audience questions and expert answers across a broad range of topics.

Founders to work on ‘larger project’ at Google. A statement acknowledging the acquisition on the Superpod site said, “We are sad to announce that we will be closing Superpod today as part of a transition into a larger project. We can’t share any details at this time, but we’re trekking onwards toward the same north star and are very excited about the future.”

The question is: what is that larger project? Many reports have speculated that Superpod’s founders and assets will be deployed in some way toward the improvement of the Google Assistant. That’s logical but there may be other use cases that Google envisions. It’s difficult to imagine that Google would pay $60 million to add a few new people to the Assistant team.

Superpod built the infrastructure for an expert community that could be used in multiple ways within Google or as part of a new social Q&A initiative of some kind. The company was started by two former Google employees, William Li and Sophia Yang in roughly 2016. The mobile Q&A app promised “Pods of experts in every topic, responsive within an hour.”

Been there, done that. As others have pointed out, Superpod’s concept was far from original. In fact “answer engines” or “social search engines” have been around since the early 2000s in different forms. A partial list includes:

  • Aardvark (acquired by Google)
  • Answers.com (still here)
  • Askville (Amazon-owned, shuttered)
  • ChaCha (shuttered)
  • Facebook Q&A (shuttered)
  • Jelly (acquired by Pinterest)
  • Keen (pivoted, acquired)
  • MerchantCircle Q&A (shuttered)
  • Microsoft Q&A, Bing Social (both shuttered)
  • Mosio (pivoted)
  • Quora (still here)
  • Replyz (shuttered)
  • Rewarder (shuttered)
  • Text411/kgb (shuttered)
  • Yahoo Answers (still here)

Google’s previous expert, Q&A initiatives. The idea behind them has always been: humans are better at answering questions than an algorithm. Yet, the vast majority of these initiatives failed to attract sufficiently large audiences. The most recent example was Jelly, started by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

Google previously tried to build expert platforms or communities several times. The company shuttered its Wikipedia-like expert community Knol in 2011. More recently there was Google Helpouts, a platform for finding and paying for expert advice or tutorials. And the earliest of these efforts, roughly 16 years ago, was Google Answers, a Q&A service discontinued in 2006 under pressure from the free Yahoo Answers.

Why you should care. Google hasn’t disclosed the percentage of voice queries that are handled by Google Assistant versus traditional search results. Assuming Superpod’s community and capabilities are somehow integrated in the The Assistant, it could reinforce a preference for the Assistant (“answers not links”) and put more SEO pressure on companies to show up in featured snippets or the “zero position.”



About The Author

Greg Sterling
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes about the connections between digital and offline commerce. He previously held leadership roles at LSA, The Kelsey Group and TechTV. Follow him Twitter or find him on LinkedIn.

Related Topics

Channel: SEOGoogle: SEOSearch Engines: Answer Search EnginesSearch Engines: Social Search Engines

Sign up for our daily recaps of the ever-changing search marketing landscape.

Note: By submitting this form, you agree to Third Door Media's terms. We respect your privacy.


We're listening.

Have something to say about this article? Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter or our LinkedIn Group.

ATTEND OUR CONFERENCES

Lorem ipsum doler this is promo text about SMX events.

May 21-22, 2019: SMX London

Sept 30 - Oct 1, 2019: SMX Advanced Europe

November 18-19, 2019: SMX Paris

February 19-20, 2020: SMX West

March 18-19, 2020: SMX Munich

June 8-10, 2020: SMX Advanced

November 11-12, 2020: SMX East

×


Learn More About Our SMX Events

Gain new strategies and insights at the intersection of marketing, technology, and management. Our next conference will be held:

April 15-17, 2020: San Jose

October 6-8, 2020: Boston

×

Attend MarTech - Click Here


Learn More About Our MarTech Events

White Papers

  • The Ultimate Agency Guide for Choosing the Right Marketing Automation Vendor.pdf
  • How Good Partnerships Should Reduce Your Workflow
  • Digital Insights 2019: How marketers confront the obstacles of digital customer engagement
  • 14 Industry Experts on the Future of Attribution
  • The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Ad Spend from Invalid Traffic
See More Whitepapers

Webinars

  • 2020 Outlook for AI in B2B Marketing
  • Build Brand Humanity by Mastering Empathy at Scale
  • The Fantastic 5: Emerging strategies to drive conversions & growth
See More Webinars

Research Reports

  • Enterprise Digital Asset Management Platforms
  • Identity Resolution Platforms
  • Customer Data Platforms
  • B2B Marketing Automation Platforms
  • Enterprise SEO Platforms
  • Call Analytics Platforms
See More Research

Search Engine Land’s Guide To SEO

Master the Science of SEO
Sign up for our NEW daily brief.
Search Engine Land
Download the Search Engine Land App on iTunes Download the Search Engine Land App on Google Play

Channels

  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social

Our Events

  • SMX West
  • SMX London
  • SMX Advanced
  • SMX East
  • MarTech West
  • MarTech East

Resources

  • White Papers
  • Research
  • Webinars
  • Search Marketing Expo
  • MarTech Conference

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Advertise
  • Marketing Services
  • Staff
  • Connect With Us

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Youtube
  • iOS App
  • Google Play

© 2019 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.