Google launches group question tool

Google has launched “Google Moderator,” a group question tool built on Google’s app engine.

Google Moderator allows anyone attending a function or forum to submit a question, and then give other participants a way to vote on whether or not that question should be asked to who ever is on stage. The theory being that the most popular and relevant questions would, according to Google, rise to the top so that the presenter or the moderator of an event could run the discussion more efficiently and in a transparent manner.

The new service was originally used internally within Google. Stan Schroeder at Mashable notes that “Sometimes it seems to me that the most useful of Google’s projects come from their engineers 20-80 rule.”