Does a geek in high school make you a better adult?

(Flickr photo by Stitch)

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs probably weren’t the coolest kids in high school, but look at them now.  Most jocks and cheerleaders did not grow up as professional athletes or head to Hollywood.  So does being a geek mean you’ll be more successful later in life?

Alexandra Robbins, an American journalist, lecturer, and author, delivers a new book called the Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth.  Robbins focuses on following seven students in public and private high school for a whole year.  She concludes that what makes a student popular does not make them happy or successful after they graduate.  So the attention, the good looks, the visibility, and being at the top won’t necessarily give you a successful life or career.

“Be nice to the nerds: they will be your boss one day!” – So is this good news for the geeks?  Being unpopular translates to being successful.  Companies tend to hire individuals who are smart or think in unique ways.

Do you actually believe in Robbin’s findings?  Do you think geeks tend to grow up successful and the popular grow up with failures?  Share below what you think.

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Maintenance is now completed

Last week, Friday, we let you know that Answers would be unavailable Monday, May 16 for several hours.  We are happy to share that all maintenance has now been completed and the site is available again.

We apologize for any inconvenience.  Thanks so much for your patience!

Now back to your regular asking and answering. :)

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Yahoo! Answers planned maintenance on Monday, May 16th

(Flickr photo by General Wesc)

Hello everyone,

Yahoo! Answers will be unavailable Monday, 16 May, from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., due to planned maintenance. If there is any change to this schedule, we will update the information here.

Meanwhile, please check out these Yahoo! pages and:

We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Royal Wedding – Happy Ending

Earlier this week we invited you to our Yahoo! Answers Royal Wedding Week! As it comes to an end, we wanted to thank our whole community for telling their proposal stories and sharing their tips on planning a perfect wedding.

Today, after much discussion about the gown, the guests, the vows, and much more, the long-awaited nuptials finally happens.  As the beautiful bride walks down the aisle to the choral anthem “I Was Glad” by Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, the prince will soon be united with his princess in holy matrimony.  Congrats to Prince William and Princess Kate!

In celebration of the royal wedding, we wanted to ask our community one more question.  We’ll award 100 bonus points to the user with the best answer.  Now that the couple are about to say “I do,” we want to know…

Question: What is the secret to a lifelong successful marriage?

If you want the latest details on the big event, please visit the Royal Wedding coverage of Yahoo! Philippines.

Thanks for reading!

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Royal Wedding Week

Cue “Here Comes the Bride”: The wedding season will be here before you know it and what better way to start than the wedding of the decade. This week, as the world watches Prince William and Kate Middleton say “I do,” we invite you to Yahoo! Answers Royal Wedding Week.

As Prince William and Kate walk down the aisle this Friday, on April 29th, we’d like to hear your stories, secrets, and tips from your special day or upcoming nuptials.

To celebrate the most anticipated wedding, we’ll ask three questions this week and encourage you to share your moments and/or dreams. In addition, we’ll award the winning answers 100 bonus points.

The first question is about a moment that no one will ever forget…

Question:  How did your significant other propose to you?

Royal wedding photos

To see pictures of the royal family, please visit our Flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishmonarchy/

And much more

If you can’t get enough of all the Royal Wedding hype, check out Yahoo! Philippines OMG for more news and information of the big day!

Check back on Wednesday and Friday for our second and third wedding question! :)

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National Karaoke Week

Every so often we like to blog about fun and zany holidays. We are all aware of the obvious ones, but we like to mix it up a bit.

National Karaoke Week is celebrated the fourth week of April. How is it celebrated? Easy! You go out and sing or even better, purchase a karaoke machine or microphone. :)

For all you fans, we all know this can be quite embarrassing or an entertaining hobby. Karaoke has been around for over 40 years. As you may have guessed, the first Karaoke machine was developed back in 1971 in Japan. Since then it has spread to other parts of the world.

Now a popular fad in the Philippines, Karaoke is seen more at home than in bars and the list of songs just keeps on growing. So you tell us, what’s your favorite song to sing? Whether it’s a classic or new one, what song do you love to perform in front of your friends and family?

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How do we choose the Best of Answers?

Many of you show a lot of interest in the content that appears in the “Best of Answers” module and often ask how this is selected and what decisions go into what we choose to highlight. Today, we’d like to tell you more about this prominent module on the Yahoo! Answers homepage. Follow us behind the scenes!

Firstly, the module called “Best of Answers” actually features a number of different types of content; so let’s start with an overview of each of these types:

Best of Answers


The purpose of the “Best of Answers” module is to highlight the most interesting questions posted by you, the community. We can use this to feature either open or resolved questions.  Of course, if we choose a resolved question then we include the first few lines of the best answer too.

For this module we really look for content that’s unique or unusual.  The kind of content that makes us go “Whoa, I always wondered that!”

Special Feature


The Special Feature template is used to highlight questions that are being promoted by our team.  Examples include Celebrity questions or official questions asked with our Team account (i.e. Safer Internet Day).

Featured Sponsor


As you’d expect from the name, these feature questions asked by one of our Sponsors or Knowledge Partners.

Featured Content


We use this space to surface posts from our blog or to our pages on Facebook or Twitter.

How can you make it onto the Best of Answers?

We check the site every day for interesting questions, but that’s not the only way we select what we feature. In fact, we encourage you to submit any content you think deserves to appear on the Yahoo! Answers homepage. Have you found an interesting or quirky question? Have you provided a fantastic answer and helped someone out? Send it to y_answrs_favorites@yahoo.com and it might be selected to appear on the Yahoo! Answers homepage!

To increase chances of being featured:

  • The question, resolved or closed, should be of general interest, and ideally something that is not widely known
  • The answer should not be easily found on the internet
  • Try finding questions showing unique or experience-based knowledge
  • Ensure that an avatar or a personal image is used
  • Make sure the content is clear and well expressed
  • And last but not least, the content needs to abide by our Community Guidelines and the Terms of Service.

We hope this overview will give you a better understanding of how we choose content to as the `Best of Answers`.

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The Answers community is about to get even bigger!

Currently, as a pre-requisite to participate on Yahoo! Answers, we ask that you have a Yahoo! ID to sign-in to the Yahoo! network.  This in turn is where your identity on both Yahoo! and Answers is managed from.

Now, as part of Yahoo’s moves to make the web a more social and open place we are opening up Answers to people with Google or Facebook IDs too.

We appreciate people don’t want to be overwhelmed by different logins for each site you want to participate in on the web and through a technology called OpenID we’re able to eliminate the need for multiple logins across different Web sites.

After you sign-in with your Google or Facebook ID you’ll be able to fully participate on Yahoo! Answers.

Check out this video to see how easy it is to sign-in with a Google or Facebook ID:

A few points to note:

  • For existing Answers members you’ll still see all of your existing content when you login with your Yahoo! ID.  However you also have the option to `bind` your Facebook/Gmail account with your Yahoo! account.  If you choose to do this you’ll be able to see all of your Answers content when logged in with either your Gmail or Facebook account.  Read this help page to find out how to do this.*
  • If you sign in with your Facebook ID you still control what is published to your Facebook feed from Answers through the checkbox on the ask/answer flow.  Your activity on Answers will not automatically be published on your Facebook feed.
  • OpenID isn’t available for the Mobile version of Answers just yet… we’re working on it though and we expect to make it available in the coming months.
  • All participants using Google or Facebook IDs will still be subject to our Yahoo! ToS and Answers Community Guidelines when contributing to the site.

For further information on Yahoo! Fast Pass check out the Yodel Anecdotal blog post: http://ycorpblog.com/2011/01/18/id-sign-in/

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Inspiration 2011: Most inspiring answers

To celebrate the start of 2011, the community shared their inspirations by answering this question: What will you do to make 2011 special? and submitted their most inspirational photos to our Flickr group ‘Inspiration 2011.’

Now it’s time to show the best answer and a few other contributions that we really loved. Keep reading and see what the community is planning to do to make this year special!

Best Answer

The most inspirational answer came from Lise M who not only touched us with her answer, but also shows that despite her circumstances, she still has a plan and has a lot to look forward to this year.

I’m doing a 365 photo diary for my children and grandchildren. I have a terminal illness and so far have lived much longer than anyone expected. Now I want to document everyday of this new decade in pictures. I take at least one picture of something about my life every day, and then write about that day. Lord willing I will make it all the way through this New Year – if not, I will be with my Savior and that’s okay too. Happy 2011 everyone!

Great Contributions

We had over 2,000 answers and though we can only pick ONE best answer, we felt these answers were just as great. Definitely worth reading!

By Mr. Green:

I’m planning on looking to the new year with a better outlook. Last year was OK, but I want this year to be better. I plan on being more outgoing, meeting more new people by joining interest groups and just enjoying life. I think I haven’t taken enough time to smell the roses. So I plan on being less serious this year, and hopefully making new and better friendships. But I have to get over my fears and just do it! Here’s to another year!

By Jackie Huggins:

I will live life as I have been with the same good lifestyle and strive for the same happiness I have in life. I will start school in a few weeks, which is long overdue, and I will get the best grades I possibly can. I will love my three kids until they’re sick of me and I will try to be a better wife. I’m sure that would be the only change I would make! Life is so very great so I will be happy with what I was given.

By Kenny D:

This summer we have a month long vacation planned to visit Stuttgart, Germany and Vienna, Austria. We will visit our daughter, granddaughter, and son-in-law in Stuttgart  for the last 20 days in June, and then travel by rented car to Vienna, Austria and spend the last 7 days of our vacation in Vienna. We will be staying at the Grand Hotel in Vienna and have tickets to attend the Vienna Mozart Orchestra concert at the Vienna State Opera on the night before we fly home on July 7. Our daughter married a German national while she was stationed at Ramstein Air Base and she decided to stay in Germany when she separated from the Air Force. Our last visit was 4 years ago and at that time they was living in Kaiserslautern, but have since moved to Stuttgart after the birth of our granddaughter Emily.

By Tabby:

I aspire to do more for wildlife charities so the beautiful animals and birds in our world are safer from vandals. Then people can have beautiful places to exercise and enjoy the wildlife. I want to make notelets with my photographs of wildlife and sell them to help raise funds, and knit animal hats for kids to buy at Fayre’s. Also to learn more about animals and help on a practical level, too.

By Pink Sherbet Photography:

Paying off ALL our credit card debt by December 2011 so we can buy our first home in 2012 when my husband retires from the military after 24 years of service! Starting with the highest interest cards first, making extra large payments on those and minimum on the others. Once the highest interest card is paid in full, I start on the next highest, making my way down the list. Pinching every penny this year, clipping and using coupons and putting every extra dollar I can toward paying off the debt in 12 months!

By Veronica Barrera:

I’m a girl who loves writing, music, painting, drawing, and taking photos. For a long time I’ve wanted to put these favorites to work but because I’m my own worst critic, I never got around to it. This year is going to be different.

This year:
-I plan to do a painting/drawing
-write some stories and enter them in contests
-get back on the violin and piano
-write a song
-make a series of photography portfolios

This year, 2011, I plan to show off my creative side! Here’s to an awesome and prosperous year! Happy 2011 :)

By rossislx:

Having been through many challenging years as a single Dad I have gotten to a new level, what the biggest accomplishment is my children are all (almost) adults. My youngest is a senior in High School and will be moving on. I am deeply satisfied with their achievements and the direction they are going. It’s been approximately 12 years single parenting. As those of you who know, it’s a huge challenge and effort raise kids. I have had to put aside much of the “me” throughout these years, therefore I am extremely excited about the new prospects that will be available when the time comes. I have a lot of unwinding to do. I have high hopes for finding my life and the things I enjoyed for so many years prior to my role in my family. I am hoping that things will spring back and the old adventurous and enthusiastic guy returns, So I am really excited about being a part of my boys transition into college and feeling rested more focused and less distracted.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

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Inspiration 2011

2011 has just begun and this is traditionally the time when everyone sets resolutions that they want to fulfill in the coming year. Whether you want to climb a serious mountain, finally try out grandma’s cake recipe that has been lying around for ages, or plan to do something good for your local community, now’s your moment. Think about what you are planning and if you’re inspired, why not share your aspirations by answering this question:

What will you do to make 2011 special?

Pictures paint a thousand words, as the expression goes, so that’s why we created the Flickr group “Inspiration 2011”. Here you can look at what other people have been thinking of or share photos that represent your inspiration and the goal you want to achieve in 2011.


www.flickr.com

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