The New Ask Is the Same Old Ask
July 30, 2010
I have written so much about Ask.com, formerly AskJeeves.com, that I am not going to go over the long and quite interesting history. I want to talk about DirectHit, the enterprise play, the fling with the Rutgers’ wizards, and the death of the smirking butler.
Won’t do it. No.
I want to direct your attention to “Can Ask.com’s New Search Strategy Work?” The article summarizes the most recent type-a-question, get-an-answer approach for the Web search service. The article points out that Ask.com is in the Q&A based query business, and that’s close enough for horseshoes in a race with a leader way out front, number two loaded down with billions of dollars and a crazed gleam in its eye, a confused third place runner, and then dear old Ask.com.
The write up does a good job of explaining how the system answers questions. There is a reference to “proprietary matching technology”, a secret sauce. Don’t forget the human element. And there’s a comment that is okay with me for a company that has not done much since one of the Ziff fellows with whom I worked labored in the AskJeeves vineyard early in the company’s history. Here’s the passage I noted:
Ask.com’s new strategy could deliver an indirect and slightly ironic benefit: By creating an ever-growing number of user-generated answer pages, Ask will likely gain decent placement in Google searches for commonly discussed topics. And that’ll mean people searching Google for information will end up clicking on Ask’s answers. So even if it doesn’t attract hoards of new long-term users, Ask may find enough added incidental traffic to help it grow as a small but consistently present niche player.
From my point of view, search has lost its focus. The Google style stuff is too expensive for too many to sign on to index the Web. There are too many things to code around. The ad world is chugging along, but there has not been change in Google’s revenue because no one has found a way to trip Googzilla.
The surge in mobile devices and smaller form factors makes the result list look dorky. The notion of answering a tough question is tough because lots of Web users want to type 2.3 words, hit the enter key, and be done with search. Others are happy taking whatever the mobile device spits out. Pizza? Hey, there’s one. Looks good to me. Other vendors are using saved queries and just pumping stuff to people who match a profile a person created or an algorithm ginned up.
The addled goose has some ideas for an outfit like Ask.com, but I live in Harrod’s Creek, and the Barry Diller mavens live far away from the pond filled with mine run off.
Oh, I did a query for Beyond Search, and it came up number one. Exciting.
But when I read “Competitors beware: Innovation in search benefits Google,” I learned that Barry Diller learned that advertising via Nascar sponsorships, tossing in new tricks, and dreaming of a big winner were wrong headed. Ah, what one can learn by doing.
Stephen E Arnold, July 30, 2010
Comments
One Response to “The New Ask Is the Same Old Ask”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
I wondered also whether Ask might be breaking UK laws with their new ad approach. Can’t be all that good.