Checking in With Gary Price at Ask.com

Several weeks ago Gary Price went to Ask.com, and I didn't mention it because I was buried in book. Gary used the Ask blog to give a little update. So I'll take a few minutes to note this here and say how proud I am of Gary and I think he and Ask.com are a great match.

So Gary's update is at http://blog.ask.com/2006/04/price_check.html. He notes that he's still continuing both ResourceShelf and DocuTicker, and that both of these resources remain independent from Ask. (In other words he can speak his mind.)

Ask is in an interesting space. In 2005 at Computers in Libraries, Yahoo and Google and MSN were definitely at the top of the pile. Ask was off to one side a bit -- not quite able to step up with the big three, but at the same time it couldn't be relegated to the third tier search engines. It pretty much had the second tier to itself.

This year it was much clearer -- there's a big four, and it includes Ask. They have made enough new moves and offered new features to get them into the forefront. They could go a little bit further, though. My votes? Talk up Bloglines a little bit more-- it's truly an amazing tool -- and build up the acquisitions a little. ZoHo? PodZinger? YouTube?

Posted to Search Engines-Ask Jeeves