Forget the advertising campaign debacle: There is some real news about Ask.com tonight. The search engine, which is currently the fourth most used search service, is publicly re-launching tonight around 9 PM PST. You won’t see this when visiting the site: The home page and all results pages have been significantly overhauled and a ton of new features and resources have been added. The company has been testing the changes with a small sample group since late last year. At the core of the changes is a move towards simplicity, though, which may count for more than the other changes. There is a significantly less cluttered home page with lots of white space. Users can skin that page with a number of options by clicking on “skins” below the search box (my favorite is “azul” if you have a wide enough screen – this is the image at the top of this post). Ask says that users will also be able to upload their own images within a month or so. Google recently started offering users the ability to personalize the home page as well. The search results themselves are highly customized depending on what type of search is being conducted. Search for a music artist and see images of the artist along with clips from tracks via iLike in the right sidebar (Ask’s sister company, TicketMaster, recently invested in iLike). Search for a city and get different results in the sidebar – a map, weather information, the current time, photos and wikipedia information. Ask also has a preview feature for search results – click on the binoculars next to a result and a window pops up to view the page. Ask will also tell you the weight of the page, whether it uses Flash or other plugins, and other data. There are literally dozens of other features as well. Results can be bookmarked by clicking on the “+” icon to the right of each result, for example. Click on advanced search options and it bring it right into the page instead of redirecting like other search engines. And my personal favorite: the Ask logo and header is off to the left, meaning far more results are loaded onto each results page. The left sidebar contains options to narrow or expand the search, which Ask CEO Jim Lanzone says are clicked on very often to help people find the right → Read More

Since we first covered the Ask Algorithm campaign May 4, IAC has committed $100 million to expanding the Crispin, Porter + Bogusky designed “viral” campaign nation wide. The original stand alone obscure references to the algorithm have been complimented with an Ask logo on billboard advertisements, a positive step forward. However one billboard is sure to turn heads and it’s for all the wrong reasons: Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter probably hated the algorithm as well, is he on the next billboard? What in the world is Ask thinking? What sort of warped company uses the name of a terrorist in an effort to increase market share for a search engine? Given that the Algorithm finds Jesus you’d think the Algorithm could find sensitivity training as well. The zany thing about the whole campaign is that Ask actually knows how to run a decent advertising campaign. The Ask ads appearing on TechCrunch through the FM Network provide compelling information and even the occasional third party product endorsement. They maintain decorum whilst building much needed product and brand awareness for a search engine that most people outside of tech haven’t even heard of. Do a straw poll of 6 non-tech/ geek friends about whether they have heard of Ask, the closest they usually can get is Ask Jeeves, and they normally add “is that still going?” Algorithms mean nothing to this group and this should be the core target market for Ask. (photo via Search Engine Roundtable) → Read More

It’s Friday night in London. You’re out on the town with some friends at the local pub, drinking some beers and the call of nature beckons. Making your way to the restroom you’re confronted with advertising that tells you that 75% of online information goes through one company. On the other side of the Pond, a soccer mom makes her way along the New Jersey Turnpike, passing a sign that reads “The Algorithm is from New Jersey”. Of course whilst the first example begs the question “are they taking the piss?”, both have been exposed to the latest viral advertising campaign from the IAC owned Ask.com. There’s no official word on how much the Crispin, Porter + Bogusky designed campaign costs, but it would be fair to presume that it’s not small change: Algorithm and “Information Revolution” advertising has been spotted on both sides of the United States and throughout the United Kingdom. But is it working? The numbers would suggest that it isn’t. Despite the big spend, the campaign has been too clever by half. Does the average internet user even know what an algorithm is, or more importantly even care? Do pub goers in the United Kingdom care that Google controls over 75% of search in that country? If the Algorithm constantly finds Jesus, why can’t it find increased market share? To be a little fairer to Ask though, the comScore traffic figures only cover the period to the end of March, the campaign was rolled out in February and into early March, and things look a little brighter in April according to Alexa: More recently Ask has announced its intention to expand the campaign to television. Greg Ott, Ask.com’s VP of Marketing writes after making the announcement that the company wants people to think of the Algorithm in the same way people think of “Intel Inside”. And yet it still doesn’t find traction for me. Perhaps I’ve been around too long and still yearn for the days of Jeeves when you visited Askjeeves.com if you had a question you needed answered, instead of Yahoo! Answers. There’s one thing that I’ve always considered Ask to have going for it, ask.com as a URL, 3 letters, easy to remember…indeed the simplicity and marketing potential of the name was one of the reasons given when Jeeves was dropped, and yet not one advertisement drives home the name. If a tree → Read More

We’ve previously named Yahoo Maps the top maps application on the Internet. Tonight we’re not so sure. The new AskCity product, which combines Ask.com’s existing maps product (overhauled last February) with deep local content (information, reviews, etc.) and very good search, will make it our go to source for maps and local business information. Ask CEO Jim Lanzone gave us a walkthrough of the product a few days ago, and we are impressed with what they’ve done. The reason that AskCity has such good content is that they’ve taken it from CitySearch, another service owned by parent company IAC. CitySearch has ten years of local content, and that is now deeply integrated with Ask’s maps product. Key categories are Businesses and Services, Events, Movies, and Maps & Directions. The three pane interface allows users to conduct multiple searches, revise itineraries, create multi-point driving or walking directions (only Yahoo and Ask offer multi-point directions). Restaurant reservations are linked via OpenTable, event tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster (another IAC property) and soon they will integrate movie ticket purchases through Fandango. Searches can be refined by neighborhood, cuisine or movie genre. A Users can also pin items (events, places) onto a map, draw their own notes on the map, and send a permalink to the customized map to friends for printing or for their comments. → Read More