Ask.com Moving away from being a Search Engine

[cyberkiller]

In a dramatic about-face, Ask.com is abandoning its effort to outshine Internet search leader Google Inc. and will instead focus on a narrower market consisting of married women looking for help managing their lives.

Ask.com to get makeover as women’s site - U.S. business - MSNBC.com

 

[Rage9]

Keywording the bitches, I know - sad.

 

[jelf]

good move since they suck

 

[zany zoroaster]

ha, right on the heels of their big marketing campaign in England

 

[aim]

...instead focus on a narrower market consisting of married women looking for help managing their lives...

Wow. That's quite the change in strategy.

 

[John]

good for them, their engine always sucked

 

[xmcp123]

good for them, their engine always sucked

I disagree completely. Their engine had no traffic. But if you checked it out in recent months, their algo absolutely blows the other ones out of the water.
Could've been really good if they had more traffic, and a spider using something other than a dial-up connection.

 

[aim]

I agree with xmcp. Their engine has come a long way. Their problem was never creating a 'better' search engine than Google. It's about taking some of Google's market share away, which, good -or- bad is damn near impossible right now.

I feel that getting people to move away from Google is like getting people to move away from Windows. Ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

 

[John]

I guess I havn't even been to ask in a year or more...

 

[schoolishard]

Jim Safka, who became Ask's chief executive two months ago, predicted the retooling will breathe new life into the search engine.

"Everyone at Ask is excited about our clear focus and the trajectory-changing results it will deliver," he said in a statement.

I think Safka definitely wants to help out some married women.

 

[DaveEMG]

I don't think Google's position is totally solid. I mean, they've only been around for 10 years so far... Not like they're untouchable. But I don't think approaching them head-on will work. Whatever offsets Google is going to need to be something that none of us are smart enough to figure out. A new way of interacting with the web, not keyword based search but something more useful and intuitive to the human interaction process.

And I'll also +1 on ask.com's improvements. I think they came up with some good stuff. Oh well, now it'll just be a vagina monologue.