When I first discovered Yahoo! Answers, I rolled my eyes. Another futile attempt to facilitate the “knowledge sharing,” which historically provides lots of value for the recipient but little motivation for the subject-matter expert. It’s been the age-old problem of knowledge management within corporations, and part of the reason that Epinions and other companies have floundered. The stop gap was supposed to be some software that read your e-mails and documents and used keywords to identify you as an expert on a topic for peers (yeah- you’d love your co-workers to find you ranked number one for porn wisdom).

Yahoo! Answers has a whole point system, but they’re not exactly exchangeable for food stamps or beer. It struck me at first like an ego tool with little benefit to those of us that are packed full of wisdom and answers. Heh.

Then I discovered a secret to Yahoo! Answers. It’s an honest Google search-engine cheat. In other words, it can get you ranked highly on search results for a particular area. I can’t tell you how many times in the past months that my Google search has led me to information on Yahoo! Answers. And my WillVideoForFood referral sources show that people are coming to this blog via Yahoo Answers more and more… because people are using me as a source to answer online-video questions.

So now, as a Google ranking whore, I’m having fun answering random questions about online video. Here’s a YouTube section. Go ahead and post a question, folks.

The Viral Video Genius shall answer you. He wants not points or praise. He simply wants to be noticed by Mother Google, the Orb of All Knowledge. To feel the warmth of Her approving gaze. For if you find Nalts via Her gentle direction, then he does indeed exist.

Note: It’s nearly impossible to find other good sources to verify this technique because searches for Yahoo! Answers and Google Ranking are swarmed with other information. But watch your Google results when you ask a question, and you’ll start noticing Yahoo! Answers ranking well.

P.S. I spell checked this, you neurotic freaks.