Yahoo! Philippines Answers blog

This week Yahoo! Answers reached an important milestone – we received our 1 billionth answer!

From the small beginnings when we received our first answer from the public back in December 2005 we have now become the largest and most popular global Q&A site on the internet, available in 9 languages across 21 countries.

The volume of contributions we receive from the Answers community on a daily basis is mindboggling.  Yahoo! Answers currently receives:

823,966 questions and answers per day…
that works out to 34,331 per hour or 572 per minute
which is 10 questions and answers posted EVERY second!

The first answer on Answers

It’s difficult to pinpoint the first answer to the first question once Answers was opened to the public, but one of the first-ever answers came to this question -“Why are yawns contagious?”

This was one of many questions you’ve always wanted to know the answer to, but didn’t know how to find – until Yahoo! Answers came along.

The most answered questions of all time…

Through the years, we have had numerous celebrities and leading political figures appear on Yahoo! Answers.  Their questions have proven to be overwhelmingly popular with the community due to the large numbers of answers received.

Here’s a rundown of some of the biggest:

• The most popular question ever was from Hilary Clinton who received over 38,000 answers to her question: “Based on your own family’s experience, what do you think we should do to improve health care in America?”.
• For the Philippines, the most popular question is the one I asked about Pinoy Big Brother Double Up winner Melisa “Melai” Cantiveros, if you believe that she was the clear winner?.  It received almost 1,700 answers.
• As part of the ONE campaign to Make Poverty History, Bono took the time to select David C’s response as the best answer to his question, What can we do to make poverty history?, from the 29,458 received.
• The most popular question asked by a local celebrity was from Bianca Gonzales who got over 1,400 answers.  Her question was: “How can young Pinays be reminded that they should be confident and proud of their brown skin?”.

The quirkiest questions of all time…

The following are some of the most interesting and original questions that our Answers community has asked:

• What numbers and letters do you key on you keyboard to make a heart symbol?
• Is eating the inside of an orange peel good for you?
• How far east can you go before you’re heading west?
• What do you call the white “paper” wrapper used for White Rabbit candies?

Drum roll…

The honour of providing the 1 BILLIONTH answer on Yahoo! Answers goes to cgramer2 for his excellent response to this question: What laptop part can I replace to speed up my pc?

Thank you cgramer2 and THANK YOU Answers Community.  It is you all who have made this site such a phenomenal place where information can be exchanged and opinions heard.  Thanks to our amazing community for making this milestone happen!

So, if you ever have a question?  Yahoo! has an answer… over one billion of them!

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It’s been the talk of the town for the past few days and the chatter is very evident online where people searched for it (It was the most searched keyword in Yahoo! Philippines last week Friday) and discussed it on blogs and social media sites.  So what is a Jejemon?  And why is it suddenly being talked about?

The country editor of Yahoo! Philippines decided to bring this question to the Answers community: “What is a ‘jejemon’ and why the sudden popularity?” Almost 400 of you shared what you know about the Jejemon and it certainly helped enlighten a lot of people about it.

Answers user Demi-LAncer gave the best answer to the question.  He shared that word “jejemon” was most likely derived from two words, “jeje” and “Pokemon”.  “Jeje” came from the onomatopoeia for laugh, “hehehe”, but with the “h” replaced with a “j”.

Community member Momonja defined “jejemon” as someone who purposely changes the spelling of typewritten words by alternating uppercase and lowercase letters, replacing letters with other characters, and by adding more characters to the spelling to create a different looking word but pronounced similarly (but with exaggeration) to the original word.

To better understand this concept, here’s a comparison of a normal text and its jejemon version:

Normal: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Jejemon: dhUh qW!k vr0uwN phF0uX jumF3d 0v3r t3h L@izey dhouG

Plok explained that the jejemon “language” is in a way similar to l33t-5p34/< (for leet-speak) and LOL-speak, both products of the early days of chatting online (IRC-talk) and text lingo, but different in that the purpose of this is not to abbreviate or shorten words or phrases but simply to create a different (although more complicated) way of spelling words.

This phenomenon has transcended beyond language and evolved to an actual sub-culture.  It has come to describe the local “gangstahs” who dress up in a certain way (ever seen someone wear a “jeje-cap”?) and act differently as well.

So why all the talk about this right now?  Well, we have to thank presidential candidate Gibo Teodoro for this (or at least the person who photo-shopped his image).  Here’s the image that started all the talk:

I hope that clears the “mystery” behind the Jejemons.  Got any other question about the jejemons?  Please leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to get more answers through the Answers community in the next post.

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One of the TV shows I really enjoy watching is Iron Chef America.  The program is like a culinary game show where in each episode, a new challenger chef “battles” one of the resident “Iron Chefs” in a one-hour cooking competition based on a secret ingredient.  It’s always amazing to see the chefs put together the different types of delicious dishes based on the theme ingredient within the time limit.

Well, last month I blogged about creating a menu for a graduation celebration.  I asked the Answers community to post their suggested Pinoy appetizer, main course and dessert in questions in Answers and even in the comments of the post.  Based on your responses, here’s the result of our Answers-generated menu.  I can almost imagine this to be something I will present to the Chairman and the judges of Iron Chef America, hehehe.  Read and enjoy!

Starter: Radish Kilawin (from user “rough surface”)

The ingredients of this appetizer are thinly-sliced radish, green and yellow tomatoes sliced according to your preference, onions, green mango (the Indian or Carabao variety) also thinly sliced, and “sinamak” (this is Filipino vinegar that’s aged and mixed with chili, onions garlic and ginger).  Just mixed everything then it’s ready to eat.

Main Course: Adobo (chosen by user “Taiga Aisaka” and recipe from “Anne”)

Marinate for at least an hour 1 kilo pork liempo and/or chicken pieces.  The rest of the ingredients are: 1 head garlic, peeled and crushed; 1 tablespoon fresh crushed black peppercorns; 1-2 cups soy sauce (light or chinese soy sauce) and 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil.

In a wok or heavy-bottomed pot, sauté the marinated garlic and meat pieces until browned. Pour in marinade plus 1 bay leaf and let it simmer.  Pour in 1 cup of coconut vinegar (or sugarcane vinegar, if not available).  Do not stir.  Just let it boil for a few minutes to “cook” the vinegar.  Taste and adjust the seasoning and add some water if you want more sauce in the dish.  Simmer until meat is tender.  Remove bay leaf before serving.  You can also add a peeled hard-boiled eggs or raw potato cubes when adding more water.

Dessert: Banana Cue (from user “Alvin” based on eHow.com article)

To prepare banana cue, pour in a generous amount of oil in the pan, normally about 2 cups. As this is heating up, add 2 cups of brown sugar. You need to dip the banana into the oil or be able to roll it several times in the hot concoction.  Peel all saba bananas you are planning to cook and carefully run a skewer or stick into the middle of the banana.  Once the oil and brown sugar mixture is boiling, dip the banana into the liquid and roll several times.  After you pull the hot banana out, roll in brown sugar again and then re-dip in liquid.  Serve this caramelized delicacy hot or warm.  To add a twist to this, you can serve it with a scoop of ice cream.

There you have it, our Answers-generated menu!  This is perfect not only for celebrations but for any occasion you can think of.  Thank you again Answers community for your contributions, enjoy preparing and eating our user-generated menu.

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(Flickr photo by isadora_photography)

Ok, you’re probably wondering what I mean by this.  Well, we all know that March is Graduation Month in our country and whenever a member of the family graduates, it always calls for a celebration.

As we spend time celebrating with the graduates of 2010, I would like to reach out to the food lovers here in Answers.  Let’s create a Filipino menu that’s fit for a graduation celebration!  This menu will include the best recipes for cooking a starter, a main course and dessert (imagine a 3-course meal).  I’ve seen some amazing questions and answers about Filipino food and cooking here in Answers so I know that we can come up with a great meal based on your answers.  In short, let’s come up with a user-generated menu for a graduation celebration!

There are two ways to suggest great recipes:

Either…

A) Send us a great open question about a recipe you’d like to know for a starter, a main course or a dessert by emailing me at y_answrs_jonas@yahoo.com.ph

Or…

B) You can either answer each one of the Team questions (here: starter, main course or dessert)

If you can help us with this project, you might find yourself published in the Best of Answers module on our frontpage for a week.  Even better, if your open question or answer is selected for Best of Answers or as a Best Answer, you’ll receive 50 bonus points!  Choose carefully a great best answer to one of your submitted food questions and at the end of the period and we’ll give you 20 extra points.

I definitely look forward to receiving your suggestions. Keep an eye on our blog where we’ll reveal more details about this initiative in the next few days. Many thanks!

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Over the past few weeks we’ve made several exciting new changes to the overall Answers experience including changes to the look and feel of the site, as well as a new search experience for Yahoo! Answers.

While these changes have taken place, many of you have had questions about where we have relocated your favorite features, and what changes lie ahead. Below you’ll find some of the most commonly asked questions and their answers.

Q: Previously, I could click on “My Profile” to go straight to my profile page. This link is gone—how do I get to this page now?

A: To easily access your profile page, you can either click on your name next to the “Hello” message, or, click on the “My Activity” tab to jump straight to your profile.

Q: Below my name there’s now an “invite your friends” link—what does this do?”

A: Clicking on the “Invite your friends” link allows you to easily invite any of your friends to join you on Yahoo! Answers.  From this page, you can easily enter in the email addresses of your family and friend and encourage them to join you on Answers—that way if you’ve recently asked a question on Answers and think your Lola may know the Answer but know she’s not on Answers, you can easily get her on board, and, get her to answer your question!

Please note that if you’re a Level 1 member, instead of seeing “invite your friends” you’ll instead see a link reading, “What are points and levels?,” encouraging you to learn more about Answers. For members who are level 2 and higher, you’ll be seeing this link added in under the “About” tab in the near future.

Q: How do I see my suggested questions?

A: If you have suggested questions, they’ll show up on your homepage as they did before. Currently, we don’t have a message in place that tells you “there are no suggested questions available at this time” but we’re looking to add this back in the near future.

Q: How do I see my recent activity details?

A: To see your recent activity details, just click on the “My Activity” tab—from here, you can see your activity summary, your activity details, as well as your questions, answers, starred questions and your watchlist.

Also from this page, you can easily click on the “Edit My Preferences” link to edit the content found within your Answers profile, or, if you’re elsewhere on the Answers site, just hover back on the “My Activity” tab and click on the “Edit My Preferences” link to be taken to the same edit screen.

Q: Now that you’ve changed the look and feel of Answers, what’s next?

A: We always have a few tricks up our sleeve, so be on the lookout for new things heading your way. In the meantime, we still love hearing your thoughts about the new homepage and the changes to search, so please keep the constructive feedback coming!

If you have additional “how-to” questions about the new homepage or search, or, just want to tell us what you think, please leave a comment below!

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The decision was unanimous.  Manny Pacquiao defeated Joshua Clottey (from Ghana) after 12 rounds and basically cemented in our minds what everyone knows already: the Pacman is still the best pound for pound boxer in the world today.

Many Pinoys were actually looking forward to more than just a win but a knockout.  And it was something the Manny could have delivered had Clottey punched more than hid his face behind his gloves (hehehe).  But still, a win is a win and again, our “Pambansang Kamao” brought peace in the streets of our country (at least for the duration for the fight) and brought pride and glory to our country.

The Answers community was certainly abuzz during the Pacquiao-Clottey fight.  Now that Pacquiao is at least $15 million richer, Izah asked “If you were on Jinkee Pacquiao’s shoes, how would you spend Manny’s money?”  We all know Jinkee has a soft spot for designer items like Hermes, Chanel and Louis Vuitton bags, I wonder what you will be spending on most if you had that kind of money.

Another interesting question that was asked was about the rendition of the national anthem by Pinoy YouTube sensation Arnel Pineda.  Cyberbaguioboy asked “Should Filipino and Journey frontman Arnel Pineda be penalized for his rendition of the “Lupang Hinirang?“  This became an issue because the National Historical Institute is filing a complaint against Pineda for singing his own interpretation of our anthem.  Arnel Pineda’s version was certainly very “Journey” (hehehe) but do you think he should be penalized for singing it that way?

And the final question (and most likely the one in the minds of everyone) is, “Should Manny Pacquiao retire after his boxing match with Joshua Clottey?” (another great question asked by Izah).  It seems like the best move for Manny right now is to retire at his peak but there’s just this one issue that seems unresolved: Floyd Mayweather Jr.  The boxing world still wants to see the two best pound-for-pound fighters in the world in a match that is expected to be the richest fight of all time.  What are your thoughts on this?

As you answer those questions, let’s all take time to be thankful for the victory that Pacquiao has brought home.  Congratulations and mabuhay ka Manny!

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Following our changes to the Search experience on Answers last week we received a lot of feedback from you, the community, around the changes we made.

Advanced search changes

We’ve reacted to your feedback to make a few additional changes that now allow you to add parameters to the URL, to allow you to better sort your search result. In order to do this, here are the bits of code you’ll need to add to the end of your URL to sort your results:

&orderby=+date (to sort by most recent)

&orderby=-date (to sort by oldest)

For example a search for “dogs” produces this URL: http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result?p=dogs

If you want to sort by the most recent results, simply add “&orderby=+date” to the end of the URL:  http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result?p=dogs&orderby=+date

We will look to add these filters within the page itself over the coming months.

In addition, we have noticed that search terms within quotation marks (“ and “) were returning no results.  A few code tweaks later and hey presto – results have now returned!

Further changes

Last but not least, we’ve also taken this opportunity to fix some other bugs on the site:

• For Internet Explorer users we’ve fixed the layout issue on the Ask/Answer/Discover banner.
• We have also made changes to content deletion.  Previously, when you deleted your question or answer, it was still showing in the public view of your profile page.  From now on when you delete a question or answer, it will be entirely removed from your public profile page

Thanks for your continued feedback on our latest release, it’s definitely helping to improve Yahoo! Answers!

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(David Gurnani)

David Gurnani was an extremely out-of-shape, 25-year-old salesman in Indonesia when he tipped the scales at 157 kg.

Despite his love for eating and finding himself a beautiful fiancée, he was disappointed that his weight got in the way of his love for sports. That’s when he decided to enter the unscripted Hallmark Channel show, “The Biggest Loser Asia” in November, and his weight went downhill from there.

“King David” as he was fondly called by the trainers and other contestants, was given “The Biggest Loser” title four times during the season’s 13 weeks. He had lost the most weight among the contestants. He lost a total of 55 kg in the last episode.

“I want the next 40 to 50 years of my life to be my best,” he said before heading back home to continue his training before the finale.

By the final round, King David lost another 28 kg. to round out his total weight loss to 83 kg, which is more than half of his original weight, and enough to beat his fellow competitors, 32-year-old Filipino Carlo Miguel, 30-year-old Malaysian Aaron Mokhtar and 20-year-old Hong Konger Martha Lai to claim the first-ever title of “The Biggest Loser Asia.”

“It was hell on Earth,” David told Yahoo! Southeast Asia. “But not for a single moment do I regret anything–my loyalty to the Blue Team, and my strategy throughout the show. I’m thankful to God that I was able to lose that weight. It was the strength of God that carried me through everything.”

Despite being crowned Asia’s Biggest Loser, David had his own fair share of drama on the show, most notably with Red Team member Carlo Miguel. “I saw him as a top competitor in the competition,” David explained. “We both wanted to win just as much. But apart from that, we have no problem at all and I can say that we’re friends, and always will be friends.”

(Carlo Miguel)

After all is said and done, Carlo is all praises for David. “I knew David would win, when we all came back for the finale.  His weight loss was staggering, I knew I didn’t have enough of a chance when I saw him.”

So how did David manage to beat out the other contestants?

“My boss was very kind, he let me take three months of work in order for me to concentrate on training before the finale.  Training time is all that matters. I managed to work out six days a week, for eight to ten hours a day, and on Sundays I would work out for three or four hours.”

David’s rigorous training regimen paid off, as he’s now $100,000 richer, and has a new Renault SUV to boot.

So what’s a changed man to do?

“Apart from getting married, I’m going to go on a nice holiday, and we’ll see from there,” he said.

(Aaron Mokhtar)

Runner-up Carlo and second-placer Aaron feel equally blessed about being part of this amazing transformative journey.

“There’s no more excuses for me anymore,” Aaron said.  “With The Biggest Loser Asia I’ve won my health back, and my life.  I’m taking responsibility for myself, and I have to keep up the process of having a healthy lifestyle.  Now that I’m home I have to teach my wife about cooking healthy, and keep my family healthy.”

The show saw Carlo, who had one of the most dramatic transformations, take a leadership role throughout the competition–he defended and motivated his fellow Red teammates against the Blues, and stood up for fan favorite and fellow Pinoy, Kevin Yue.

Carlo shared his experience: “I feel fantastic, I’ve achieved everything I set out to do on this journey and I too have no regrets.  I’m going to continue living a healthy lifestyle for me, my wife, and my family.”  As for Kevin, Carlo says “He’s doing great. He’s continuing on with his weight loss, and doing it steadily.”

It’s especially hard for this Executive Chef, who earns a living by being surrounded by food. “I’ve devised a procedure where I would taste the food, and spit it out, as a sommelier or wine maker would. I really have to control my calorie intake now that the competition is over.”

Do we see Carlo incorporating healthy menu options to his restaurants’ menus?  “Well, if the market goes for it, I’ll do what the market dictates,” he replied.

To his fellow Pinoys who want to lose weight, Carlo shared some advice, “Get with the program.  Never give up.  And don’t make excuses.”

What you just read is a guest post from Charley Braga, Yahoo! Southeast Asia Front Page Producer.  I’m sure all Pinoys are happy and proud for Carlo Miguel, even though he didn’t get the top prize, he definitely represented our country well and his transformation is equally amazing.  We congratulate Carlo and the rest of the winners of “The Biggest Loser Asia!”  Because of your inspiring efforts, we would like the community to answer this question: Have you ever been successful in losing weight? If so, how did you accomplish it?

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As a part of the changes to the Answers homepage, we’re also rolling out a few changes to the search experience on Answers over the next few days. We’ve taken the feedback you’ve provided through the blogs, email accounts, Customer Care, as well as through the feedback links and the Suggestion Board and have incorporated your comments to improve the current search experience.

Through the new search experience, you’ll notice a new, re-designed layout on your search results page, making it easier to refine your search without having to leave the page.
The new answers search page

(The new Answers search page)

1. – We’ve  taken all of the options which were previously available in Advanced Search and moved them to the left-hand-side of this page to make it easier to customize your search queries.

2. – The category dropdown has been re-structured to fit this new design.

3. – For those of you who perform the same search regularly, we’ve also thought of you: : we’ve replaced the “Make this my default search option” with the “My Saved Search” feature.  “My Saved Search” allows you to save your favorite search so you can easily access the results from anywhere on Yahoo! Answers.  By checking this box Answers will store your most frequent searches.  You can then click on the “My Saved Search” link next to the “Search Answers” button to access your saved search from wherever you are on the site.

You can find out more about making the most of `My Saved Search` by checking out this help article.

As with all of the changes we’re making at the moment we’d love to hear your feedback.  Leave us a comment here on the blog or on the feedback thread on the Suggestion board.

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The next time you log into Yahoo! Answers you may notice things look a little bit different. We’re rolling out a new homepage and navigation over the next few days. Don’t worry: if you don’t see the new changes just yet, you will soon.

We’ve made quite a few changes to the homepage, so to make navigation a bit easier, we’ve broken things down for you by section, so let’s get started.

(New Answers Homepage)

1- New Navigation

You may have noticed that atop the Answers banner, there are four new, navigation tabs: Home, Browse Categories, My Activity, and About. Each of these tabs (as well as the green Answers banner) will stay with you throughout your experience on the site, making it easier for you to get to the places on Answers you care about most.

(New Navigation)

Home: This brings you back to the main page of Answers, where you can see the Best of Answers rotating module, the link to the Answers Blog (which is now on the right hand side, as well as the most recent questions posted on the site.

Browse categories: more about this below

My activity: From here, you can go directly to your Answers profile, view your network, your network activity, and even edit your preferences.

About: Learn all about Answers, revisit the Community Guidelines, check out the leaderboard, Suggestion Board,  and visit the Answers Blog.

2 – Browsing categories

(New Category Browse)

On the old Answers homepage all of the categories were permanently displayed on the left hand column, hogging up homepage space that could have been used for valuable questions. We’ve decided to tuck the categories away under the top hide-away menu where you can easily access them any time, or, if you want to view them all at once, just click on the browse category tab to be taken to the “All Categories” page. From here, you’ll be able to peruse all of the questions that are: open, resolved or in voting on the site.

3- An updated look and feel

Over the past few years we’ve heard from quite a few of you that you love the Answers green but it’s just a little too green. So we’ve taken your feedback to heart and have toned down the green just a bit and have replaced the white background with a light blue that is a little easier on the eyes. Our smilies (4) have also received a facelift and look a bit more polished throughout the site.

Additionally, you’ll notice that the page feels a bit wider—one thing we heard from you when we introduced the new category pages several months back was that you liked the extra space. This extra space allows us to display even more questions on the homepage, making it easier for you to jump right in.

But wait, there’s more!

This release doesn’t just include cosmetic changes—we also included quite a few backend bug fixes, as well as a few feature requests, like updating the category leaderboards much more regularly. Starting today, category leaderboards will update on a daily basis instead of weekly.

Please note they will NOT be real-time, but will update at the end of each day (PST).  This means at 2pm PST on Thursday (or 6am Manila time, Friday), your points total will show as it was at 23:59 PST on Wednesday (that is 3:59pm, Manila time, Thursday).

Tell us what you think

Once you’ve given the new homepage a test drive, tell us what you think! We’ve started two threads on the Suggestion Board for the new homepage—one for questions and one for comments – and we’ll be checking them regularly.  Additionally, you’re always welcome to use the “Tell us what you think” link found at the bottom of every Yahoo! Answers page.

You’re also welcome to leave your comments here, on the blog.

Thanks, and we hope you like it!

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