Ask impresses with new search

June 4, 2007 By

Microsoft, why couldn’t YOU do what Ask just shipped tonight?

A ton of bloggers are talking about the new Ask. I linked to the best of those posts over on my link blog. I gotta get some sleep. More on this tomorrow.

If you do a search on a blogger’s name, you’ll see his/her current blog at top. Really neat. It’s slower than Google, though. Photos show up on searches too. This competition is nice to see cause it’ll push Google to go further with its search too.

What do you think?

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  • http://www.astartupaday.com/ Kevin

    Ha, that’s *exactly* what I thought as soon as I saw this. Very impressive work by the Ask team, the map/local search functionality is awesome.

  • http://www.astartupaday.com Kevin

    Ha, that’s *exactly* what I thought as soon as I saw this. Very impressive work by the Ask team, the map/local search functionality is awesome.

  • http://www.lovetrials.com/ lovetrials

    I still have not forgiven Ask.com for the pop up ads I used to get there and at AskJeeves (which i think they bought). I am still having post pop stress so I will wait a bit before looking. I love Google and still donT understand how Microsoft manages to have such a poor Searcher when it is tied to an information powerhouse like MSN.

  • http://www.lovetrials.com lovetrials

    I still have not forgiven Ask.com for the pop up ads I used to get there and at AskJeeves (which i think they bought). I am still having post pop stress so I will wait a bit before looking. I love Google and still donT understand how Microsoft manages to have such a poor Searcher when it is tied to an information powerhouse like MSN.

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  • http://pavithra.wordpress.com/ Pavithra

    Excellent upgrade by Ask team.Really good features.

  • http://pavithra.wordpress.com/ Pavithra

    Excellent upgrade by Ask team.Really good features.

  • http://hauntingthunder.wordpress.com/ Neuromancer

    Um well if I could see it in the uk :-(

    I might be impressed the last theing ASK did for me was lumber me with soem aditional postage for a pr iteme they sent me.

  • http://hauntingthunder.wordpress.com/ Neuromancer

    Um well if I could see it in the uk :-(

    I might be impressed the last theing ASK did for me was lumber me with soem aditional postage for a pr iteme they sent me.

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  • http://www.johntracy.com/blog John

    Too many images on front page, it is a slow loader. I don’t want my search to look pretty, well I do, but not if it means it is slow.

    The search is nice, but before they will be making any company named after a number scared they are going to have to do a ton of more indexing, several pages I saw have completely changed titles etc. Google is on top now because of their name, but they got that way because you can count on them having the most up to date information possible, and be able to pull it up in the least amount of time possible.

  • http://www.johntracy.com John Tracy

    Too many images on front page, it is a slow loader. I don’t want my search to look pretty, well I do, but not if it means it is slow.

    The search is nice, but before they will be making any company named after a number scared they are going to have to do a ton of more indexing, several pages I saw have completely changed titles etc. Google is on top now because of their name, but they got that way because you can count on them having the most up to date information possible, and be able to pull it up in the least amount of time possible.

  • http://zeno.davaz.com/ Zeno Davatz

    I’m still looking for as search engine that knows how to group similar documents into one group.

    The thing I do not like about the common search engines is, that they do not recognize documents with similar content. It happens often on the Web that a post or document is spread out over more then 50 websites. Now that is great for the author but not for the searcher because it blows up your search result unnecessarily. With InfoCodex this will not happen because the linguistical database recognizes similar documents and puts them into groups. This does not blow up your search result unnecessarily.

    http://www.ywesee.com/pmwiki.php/Ywesee/InfoCodexProcedure

    Three things a modern Search engine should do:

    1. Automatically classify a document according to its content.
    2. Automatically generate an abstract of a document.
    3. Generate a Heat-Map of the Contents of a Search Result.

    http://www.ywesee.com/uploads/Main/InfoCodex_22.2.2007.pdf

  • http://zeno.davaz.com Zeno Davatz

    I’m still looking for as search engine that knows how to group similar documents into one group.

    The thing I do not like about the common search engines is, that they do not recognize documents with similar content. It happens often on the Web that a post or document is spread out over more then 50 websites. Now that is great for the author but not for the searcher because it blows up your search result unnecessarily. With InfoCodex this will not happen because the linguistical database recognizes similar documents and puts them into groups. This does not blow up your search result unnecessarily.

    http://www.ywesee.com/pmwiki.php/Ywesee/InfoCodexProcedure

    Three things a modern Search engine should do:

    1. Automatically classify a document according to its content.
    2. Automatically generate an abstract of a document.
    3. Generate a Heat-Map of the Contents of a Search Result.

    http://www.ywesee.com/uploads/Main/InfoCodex_22.2.2007.pdf

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  • http://www.daviddalka.com/createvalue/ David Dalka
  • http://www.daviddalka.com/createvalue/ David Dalka
  • http://www.beercosoftware.com/ Chris

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site+spaces&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
    vs.
    http://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=167&q=site+spaces&search=search

    Why does MS come out on top?

    Site Spaces is pretty well known on the net and MSN spaces doesn’t have the word site anywhere in the slogan or TM.

    That would be like Googling Coke and winding up with top results about Pepsi. Ask.com is still far inferior to Google.

  • http://www.beercosoftware.com Chris

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site+spaces&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
    vs.
    http://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=167&q=site+spaces&search=search

    Why does MS come out on top?

    Site Spaces is pretty well known on the net and MSN spaces doesn’t have the word site anywhere in the slogan or TM.

    That would be like Googling Coke and winding up with top results about Pepsi. Ask.com is still far inferior to Google.

  • http://www.beercosoftware.com/ Chris

    It makes me wonder if Microsoft “GoogleBombs” ask.com and other sites for search words like SiteSpaces, myspace and friendster. Pretty lame. I remember Microsoft tried to spam our site through adwords in 2005. I filtered them out and complained to Google. We aren’t doing adsense anymore, but that was totally out of line. One of the reasons I can’t stand them.

  • http://www.beercosoftware.com Chris

    It makes me wonder if Microsoft “GoogleBombs” ask.com and other sites for search words like SiteSpaces, myspace and friendster. Pretty lame. I remember Microsoft tried to spam our site through adwords in 2005. I filtered them out and complained to Google. We aren’t doing adsense anymore, but that was totally out of line. One of the reasons I can’t stand them.

  • Brevin

    Scoble, you’re too obsessed with Microsoft, as evidenced by your first sentence having to do with Microsoft. Also, why didn’t you pose the same question for Yahoo, or your precious Google?

    Besides, why ask Microsoft why they couldn’t deliver what Ask did when the answer is obvious? ASK SIMPLY HAS BETTER PEOPLE WORKING ON SEARCH. Ever thought of that? It’s not rocket science.

    Microsoft does NOT have the best people working in each and every field the company competes in and therefore expecting them to rule every field is foolish. I can’t think of any company that has the best people in every field the company is in (though Google claims that they do; their products put the lie to that claim however). ASK has better people working on search, end of story.

  • Brevin

    Scoble, you’re too obsessed with Microsoft, as evidenced by your first sentence having to do with Microsoft. Also, why didn’t you pose the same question for Yahoo, or your precious Google?

    Besides, why ask Microsoft why they couldn’t deliver what Ask did when the answer is obvious? ASK SIMPLY HAS BETTER PEOPLE WORKING ON SEARCH. Ever thought of that? It’s not rocket science.

    Microsoft does NOT have the best people working in each and every field the company competes in and therefore expecting them to rule every field is foolish. I can’t think of any company that has the best people in every field the company is in (though Google claims that they do; their products put the lie to that claim however). ASK has better people working on search, end of story.

  • LayZ

    “This competition is nice to see cause…”

    Ugh! Lern ta rite. The word is BEcause! How long does it take to type two more letters? Once again you succeed in making the SJSU Journalism School proud!

  • LayZ

    “This competition is nice to see cause…”

    Ugh! Lern ta rite. The word is BEcause! How long does it take to type two more letters? Once again you succeed in making the SJSU Journalism School proud!

  • Dupro

    Scoble has a new website at http://scobleizer.tumblr.com/

  • Dupro

    Scoble has a new website at http://scobleizer.tumblr.com/

  • http://www.TechHerding.com/ Dick Carlson

    Hmmmm. I did a little experimenting and if you use my name it works just fine. Or my blog name (pretty distinctive) it works just fine.

    But if you search for some topics, it finds old blogs or other strange stuff. (In fact, it picked up a post I had on GetAFreelancer.com for some help with avatar design in Second Life. Never posted anything about that in my blog…)

    But I agree — MS is focused on cash, when they should be focused on content. When you have the content, the right content, in the way I want it — you’ll get the cash. Promise.

  • http://www.TechHerding.com Dick Carlson

    Hmmmm. I did a little experimenting and if you use my name it works just fine. Or my blog name (pretty distinctive) it works just fine.

    But if you search for some topics, it finds old blogs or other strange stuff. (In fact, it picked up a post I had on GetAFreelancer.com for some help with avatar design in Second Life. Never posted anything about that in my blog…)

    But I agree — MS is focused on cash, when they should be focused on content. When you have the content, the right content, in the way I want it — you’ll get the cash. Promise.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Dupro: that’s not my site. But funny anyway.

  • http://programcsharp.com/ Chris Hynes

    Actually, for my name search, they do worse than Google, Live, or Yahoo…

    http://www.google.com/search?q=chris+hynes
    http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=chris+hynes
    http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=chris+hynes

    All have my blog as the first result, where Ask.com has the stale page of some lawyer from Toronto as the first result. And Ask.com’s result text for my blog is out of date as well.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Dupro: that’s not my site. But funny anyway.

  • http://programcsharp.com Chris Hynes

    Actually, for my name search, they do worse than Google, Live, or Yahoo…

    http://www.google.com/search?q=chris+hynes
    http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=chris+hynes
    http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=chris+hynes

    All have my blog as the first result, where Ask.com has the stale page of some lawyer from Toronto as the first result. And Ask.com’s result text for my blog is out of date as well.

  • http://programcsharp.com/ Chris Hynes

    Oops… here is the Ask.com search: http://www.ask.com/web?q=chris+hynes

  • http://programcsharp.com Chris Hynes

    Oops… here is the Ask.com search: http://www.ask.com/web?q=chris+hynes

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    LayZ: nice to know I have proper English speakers as my readers and nice to know that leaving two characters out of my speech is causing such consternation!

    I thought this wasn’t journalism, so why do you care?

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    LayZ: nice to know I have proper English speakers as my readers and nice to know that leaving two characters out of my speech is causing such consternation!

    I thought this wasn’t journalism, so why do you care?

  • http://www.beercosoftware.com/ Chris

    I don’t see how you can think the site Dupro linked to was funny. It reminds me of fake celeb pages on Social networking sites.

    “All have my blog as the first result, where Ask.com has the stale page of some lawyer from Toronto as the first result. ”

    That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Ask.com may have developers, but they don’t have PageRank TM. Neither does MS for that matter.

  • http://www.beercosoftware.com Chris

    I don’t see how you can think the site Dupro linked to was funny. It reminds me of fake celeb pages on Social networking sites.

    “All have my blog as the first result, where Ask.com has the stale page of some lawyer from Toronto as the first result. ”

    That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Ask.com may have developers, but they don’t have PageRank TM. Neither does MS for that matter.

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  • http://lagesse.org/ Rob La Gesse

    Hmmm… doesn’t work for me. Plain old Google puts my blog at the top, and finds over 71,000 hits on my name. Askx.com puts a Scoble post (those biased bastaaards!) as the top result when searching my name (and finds only 1400 hits).

    Doesn’t impress me at all.

  • http://lagesse.org Rob La Gesse

    Hmmm… doesn’t work for me. Plain old Google puts my blog at the top, and finds over 71,000 hits on my name. Askx.com puts a Scoble post (those biased bastaaards!) as the top result when searching my name (and finds only 1400 hits).

    Doesn’t impress me at all.

  • http://liveandbeyond.com/ pr0xy k1ll3r

    Microsoft would not want to build something like this ’cause:
    A. It makes search slower than it already is. although I must admit the new site is fast but people with slower connection might still see a lag.
    B. Ask.com spent millions in the algorithm ads all over but there seems to be no improvement in the algorithm that will give me better results that Microsofts live search or Google search, only improvements in looks and layout.

  • http://liveandbeyond.com pr0xy k1ll3r

    Microsoft would not want to build something like this ’cause:
    A. It makes search slower than it already is. although I must admit the new site is fast but people with slower connection might still see a lag.
    B. Ask.com spent millions in the algorithm ads all over but there seems to be no improvement in the algorithm that will give me better results that Microsofts live search or Google search, only improvements in looks and layout.

  • Corey

    site looks good and functions well.. but ask’s indexes always seem horribly out of date to me. Google crawls my site all the date and always has fresh data. When i search ask, i get hit on pages that havent existed on my site for many months.

  • Corey

    site looks good and functions well.. but ask’s indexes always seem horribly out of date to me. Google crawls my site all the date and always has fresh data. When i search ask, i get hit on pages that havent existed on my site for many months.

  • Sean

    What Brevin said… except maybe with less caps…

  • Sean

    What Brevin said… except maybe with less caps…