Microsoft's new Answers site stumbles

Microsoft launched over the past weekend a redesigned version of the Microsoft Answers site. So far, the "new and improved" version has been largely down for the count.

Microsoft officials acknowledged performance problems shortly after launching the redesigned site on February 26. In a post on the Answers site, a Microsoft official noted the following:

"Since we launched at 7 am this morning, we have seen extremely poor load time on the site. The entire dev team is still in the office working on this issue. We are narrowing the issue down, but still do not have it resolved."

It seems the issues were still unresolved on February 28, when I asked Microsoft for comment on the reported problems. A spokesperson sent me the following statement:

"The Microsoft Answers site has been experiencing performance issues, specifically concerning intermittent site unresponsiveness. We are actively working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we’ll continue to provide updates at Microsoft Answers."

Microsoft Answers originally launched in beta form in 2008 as a community site for those with questions about Microsoft technologies. The latest update, rolled out this past week, introduces a new "reputation model" that helps users find content written by experts and elevates high-priority questions.

Microsoft officials didn't provide any further details about what was causing the performance issues or when they expected them to be finally resolved.

Update (late in the evening on February 28): Microsoft officials sent me notification "that the site issues have been primarily resolved."