Google prepares to shut down Answers site

It isn't often we see a failed venture from Google. Whether through buying another company outright or just creating a very useful product, they've enjoyed success after success. However, it seems that has caught up with them. Google's Answers site, originally launched more than four years ago, is being shut down. Similar to other “ask an expert” style sites, it was intended for people to get answers to questions from experts in any particular field, for a fee. While Google isn't calling it a “flop”, they aren't saying much beyond that it was a learning experience:

Google's blog posting didn't give a specific reason for the closure, saying only that the site was a "great experiment which provided us with a lot of material for developing future products to serve our users." The company will stop accepting new questions later this week, but archives of older questions will be available for review.
To me, that sounds like a nice way of saying “it's not making us money”. It also may be a lack of interest and focus on other portions of the Google empire. Either way, within the next few days no new questions will be accepted and sometime soon the site itself will go down.