Google Answers axed

Mountain View (CA) - Inquisitive Internet users will no longer be able to ask new questions on Google Answers, as the search giant announced on its blog that the online Q&A service is officially canned.

"Google is a company fueled by innovation, which to us means trying lots of new things all the time - and sometimes it means reconsidering our goals for a product," wrote Google engineers Andrew Fikes and Lexi Baugher. They then go on to say that new questions will no longer be accepted on Google Answers, though the existing list of questions and answers will remain available.

Google Answers was one of the first projects for Google that went beyond a simple Internet search. It allowed users to ask any question, and then open it up to a group of responders who could post an answer and receive money from the asker.

Since then, Google has grown to much bigger projects, more recently including Web-based versions of the equivalent of Microsoft Word and Excel, which are understandably more on the front lines for Google.

Today, Google Spreadsheets added a couple new features, also mentioned in the company's blog. Now, users can go back to view previous versions of their spreadsheets, as well as publish them to a unique URL that can be publicly accessed.