Answerbag.com Introduces Industry's First Social Q&A API

SANTA MONICA, CA - February 13, 2007 -- Answerbag.com^TM, a leading and independent social knowledge platform and a division of Demand Media, Inc., today released the industry's first social question and answer API that gives users full access to their structured database of user-generated questions and answers. Integrating another site's service offerings with Answerbag's allows people to find and share knowledge through a variety of tools including posting a question, answering a question, rating content, and searching for existing questions and answers. The API also gives sites the flexibility to monetize the pages in the manner that best supports their business model.

For nearly four years, the Answerbag community has shared and vetted knowledge that's created a structured database of 100,000 unique questions and yielded 300,000 answers that are organized into 3500 categories covering hundreds of verticals including Health, Autos, and Real Estate. With the introduction of its social Q&A API, Answerbag creates the ability for site owners to monetize their online presence and tap Answerbag's collective wisdom. This integration of service offerings enables a site's users to search existing answers and generate new questions for the Answerbag knowledgebase, which can then be answered by users on Answerbag or any other site or service within Answerbag's active social search community.

"A tool as flexible as Answerbag's user generated Q&A API opens the world up to unlimited possibilities of cool new applications that creative and forward thinking people can use to enhance their existing services or create an entirely new and innovative mashup of Q&A with other features," said Answerbag Founder and General Manager, Joel Downs. "Our API offers customers a straightforward and easy way to implement social Q&A and both benefit from and contribute to our knowledgebase."

The offering of the social Q&A API complements Answerbag's existing Knowledge Network programs, including widgets and a white-label system. Answerbag widgets are available to anyone wanting to display Q&A on topics specific to their website, while the free white-label system allows sites to create a hosted, branded version of Answerbag as a channel within their own site. This approach creates opportunities for customization, enabling Q&A shared with Answerbag to be placed in their desired categories on a site, providing both a knowledge sharing service for a site's users in addition to serving as a community and loyalty-building tool.

The Answerbag API will allow users to register, read categories, questions, and answers, and contribute questions and answers, with additional functionality to follow. Companies and individuals interested in using the API can see the documentation at http://www.answerbag.com/docs/xmlschema, and they can sign up for inclusion by visiting Answerbag online. Answerbag offers website owners business models based on either revenue sharing from advertising or through a licensing fee based on utilization of the technology.

Answerbag is unique in the Social Q&A arena because it removes duplicate questions to make answer searching straightforward, and its questions are always open to new answers and ratings, so users can thoroughly vet all questions and answers in the knowledgebase. Unlike other social search companies who attempt to be all things to all people, Answerbag is the industry's only independent social Q&A platform. The company's independence gives Answerbag the ability to focus on making its service the ultimate destination for creating and distributing user generated knowledge that is organized and topical.

About Answerbag
Answerbag.com, a pioneer in the industry, is the only social Q&A platform where members ask questions, share answers, collaboratively evaluate information and build a permanent archive of knowledge and experience for the benefit of its visitors and the visitors of its partner sites. Web publishers, bloggers and forum moderators leverage the innovative Answerbag platform to provide live, social Q&A to their audiences. Founded in 2003, Answerbag is a division of Demand Media, Inc.

About Demand Media, Inc.
The Demand Media^TM proprietary media platform powers the company's popular content properties and highly-trafficked domains providing a diverse new media experience for tens of millions of users. By focusing its cutting-edge, user-driven publishing, community and monetization tools around niche' interest verticals, Demand Media offers everyone the ability to publish and partake in the evolution of new media. The privately held company was founded in May 2006 and is based in Santa Monica, CA, with offices in San Francisco and Seattle, WA. For more information, please visit Demand Media online: http://www.demandmedia.com.