Phil Bradley's weblog

UK access to Ask.com blocked?

Here's an interesting thing - when I try and go to www.ask.com I always get re-routed to UK Ask at http://uk.ask.com/ and that's not a problem, because I can click on the link that lets me choose another version. Or at least, there was such a link - this is from UK Ask a few months ago:

See that little 'Ask.com Worldwide' link? I could click on that and go to the version that I wanted to. However, the current page looks like this:
Gone! So I've spent the last 20 minutes kicking around the site trying to find out how to get the US version, where all the interesting things are happening. Maybe it's there somewhere, maybe it isn't (My guess is the latter), but the point is that if I can't find it instantly then it may as well not be there.

I can understand that Ask want to treat their UK users as second class citizens - nothing new there, and functionality they've rolled out either gets to us late or not at all, but which halfwit was it who decided that we simply were going to be blocked from the US version with the new features? Since when has providing *less* functionality and content been regarded as helpful?

I really do rather hope that someone can put me right and that I've just got it wrong, but to be honest I have my doubts.

Ask's 11th coming

In the 11th version of the venerable search engine Ask it is introducing some new features which go live in the US on the 6th October and in the UK on the 20th. When you search Ask you'll now get search results where you see the keywords in context, rather than a more basic listing of results and summary.

They are also reducing the load time of the site by 67% to help users and increase retention. Ask is also going to be paying much more attention to sites that use a question and answer model, so that when users ask questions the answers will be displayed with more prominence.

You can find more details over at their recent press release.

Ask for Kids search engine upgraded

Ask Kids has been updated. It's now easier to use with mouse and cursor, since that's what children prefer. It allows movie searches for PG13 or below, some television channels, and it has dictionaries for help on pronunciation. The usual Ask binoculars feature is also available. It's designed for children up to 12. I took a look at it and, though I know nothing about children (other having been one), it looks bright and jolly, with informative results.

As well as web search it provides image and video search as well. I played around with it for a while trying 'naughty' searches and it was very tightly locked down, which is obviously a good thing unless your child is doing a project on Blue Tits!

The search engine worked well, and has the added benefit of coming from the Ask stable, so it's one that I'd recommend for children, with the obvious proviso of trying it out for yourself first.

Sad news about Ask

As reported by Sarah (the Librarian in Black) Ask.com slashes jobs and changes focus. (Actually reported in a lot of places, but this was where I saw it first when coming in from teaching). As part of their reorganisation one of the redundancies has been Gary Price. Sarah is very disappointed by the news and I am as well. I have no personal concerns for Gary, cos he's so damn good he'll get another job when he wants one, but it's a real shame for Ask and the library community as a whole. Ask was always one of the major search engines that I'd show to people as an example of new and different ways of doing things.

I really found their approach refreshing and pushing back boundaries on search and Ask was a real search engine for librarians. There's more from Gary over at ResourceShelf and SearchEngineLand , which goes to far as to say Ask has been killed. Barry Schwartz has found articles suggesting that Ask will cut a deal with Google and will start to syndicate their results. This wouldn't surprise me, and I think it'll really cut the heart out of the innovation previously enjoyed by the engine - we'll be left with another Google clone.

So... what's worth looking at now? If you want to try a different, innovative and sophisticated engine, which has lots of functionality, good advanced options you could do worse than Exalead.

Asking about alternatives

Pandia has covered the Ask story as have many others, and they're also considering possible alternatives for the coveted 4th spot. They mention Gigablast (though given the freshness test that I tried the other day I still have my doubts) but they are also looking at Exalead as a strong contender, particularly because it's a firm favourite with librarians because of the advanced search functionality. Can't say that I disagree, especially since that was my feeling the other day as well.

ASKing for trouble?

There's an interesting article over at Silicon Alley Insider which is talking about the possibility that IAC is going to dump the Teoma search engine and just using the Google search engine with their own interface bolted on top. The same story is coming out of Valleywag and paidContent. At this stage it's all chinese whispers, in so far as there's no definite news, just lots of rumour, speculation and "tips from insiders".

The problem of course is that you can't really just 'bolt on' an interface and expect it to work in the same way. It would take a lot of work to achieve that and to be honest, what is the point of doing that if you end up with basically the same product? If it's not a product that people want in the first place I doubt that they're not satisfied with the results, it's the whole concept. This is unfortunate for serious searchers because Ask is a good serious search engine, and I sing its praises with the blended search approach that is a key element and sorely missing from Google.

Clearly Ask hasn't been able to break into the big three, which is a huge shame because it's very high quality and I hope these rumours don't come to anything (and I'm not going to believe any of it anyway until Gary Price tells me different) - we need more search engines providing their own unique brands and ideas, not less. Personally I blame the really bad advertising campaigns, and I've said all alone that they were grim. Sack the advertising company for starters!

Of course - the next question to ask, presuming that Ask does disappear, so I'm taking a huge leap here obviously - which engine is going to try and take their place, or can Ask still hold their small market share if they morph into a nicer Google interface? I'd put my money on Exalead personally.  It's a solid search engine, lots of interesting search options providing good results. However, I think we're a way off yet from having to consider the question. Watch this space!

The Ask.com Blog: Better Binoculars

Ask has been doing some good stuff recently, particularly with their  Binoculars option. Previously you could just run your mouse over them and you'd get a thumbshot of the page. Now, as a result of a tie up with Compete we get more statistics, such as the number of visitors to a site. This can be really useful when it comes to deciding which sites to visit, or how authoritative they are (with the obvious point that lots of visitors does not a good site make) very quickly. I've got a screenshot below which is two images into one, so that you can see both options available.

Ask Binoculars via kwout

There are other search engines that offer thumbnails of course, such as Exalead and sites that offer statistical information, such as Alexa but this is a really neat and effective way of bringing all that information together.

Ask eraser - fight! fight!

Ask.com hits back against AskEraser critics. This link goes to a Computer world story about how much or how little does Ask actually erase of individual search histories and patterns. It's all getting quite hysterical with claims and counter claims, so I'm not even going to start to summarise this one - you're on your own. For what it's worth, if someone is that freaked out about what may be kept about their searches maybe they shouldn't be doing them in the first place? (And yes, I know that's not really the point at all, but it's a Friday morning and I'm not in the mood.)

Ask lets you use your own wallpaper. Or not.

The Ask.com Blog: Give Me Some Skin: Ask Gets More Personal. Since the Ask relaunch last year you had the option of changing the skin of the page, and they've now got around to letting you change it to one of your own photographs which you can either upload or point to. Except it doesn't work with the UK version (though Ask generally drags the features across to the UK site inside a week) and I couldn't make it work anyway. Tried pointing to web based URLs of pictures, tried uploading several of my own, but got error messages every time. Still, early days, eh?

Ask launch speech activated driving instructions for your mobile

From the IAC Search & Media: Press Releases. Ask.com today introduced free voice-activated capabilities to its Ask.com Mobile Directions service, the first of its kind from a search engine. Called "Click to Speak," the new feature lets people simply speak their location and desired destination to receive directions on their web-enabled mobile devices. Easy to use, it eliminates typing addresses, which can be slow, error-prone and, in some cases, unsafe. Available immediately, "Click to Speak" incorporates unique technology from Dial Directions, the leading provider of voice-activated location-based services.

Of course, you do have to be in the US to use it, but the rest of us can live in hope. :)