Ask.com: is there Room for Another Major Search Engine? - More Tools
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While I didn’t care for some of the tools, others were quite nice. Using the “local” tool, I could put in the name of a type of business and a zip code—for example, my local zip code and “movie theater” (without quotes). I got a list of the movie theaters in my area, with their addresses, sorted by relevance (which wasn’t exactly distance, but close enough).
When I clicked on a theater, I got a list of the movies they were currently showing, along with their times. That’s actually better for my usual purposes than Google Local, which delivers a list and a map, and, when clicking on one of the theaters, only highlights the pushpin and offers to give you directions.
I admit that I haven’t had the time to try out all of Ask.com’s search tools. I have a feeling that I will be pleasantly surprised when I do. But here’s the catch: if I weren’t doing this for my job, I might never have stumbled across the changes that Ask.com has made. How many people will hear about Ask.com’s new look and shrug? How many will figure that the changes are only skin deep and not bother to try them out?
The only way that there can be room for another major search engine in the market is if it is different enough, and good enough, to all but compel people to use it. That’s how Google got its much-coveted position. Ask.com has been hanging on for a long time; it is almost as old as Yahoo!, as a matter of fact. I fully expect that it will continue to hang on; it might even overtake AOL in search. But I can’t see it ever becoming the household name in search that Google and Yahoo! have become. I would like nothing better than to be proven wrong; but I think, for the next few years at least, we will all continue “googling” for information online rather than simply “asking” for it.
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