Ask And Ye Shall Find

Once again, I return to an issue I’ve already mentioned before… The importance of websites realising that in order to be competitive, they have to move forward with user’s needs.

So, it’s with no great surprise that Ask, an old-school search engine, has opted for a total facelift and new approach to dealing with user searches. If you happen to be as old as me, you’ll remember that they did this before, back in 2006, when they gave their butler-image the sack. Now, after alread intoducing new applications, they’re going to be focusing upon being the search engine of choice for users who are asking direct questons. (eg. Is there no end to the talents of DigitalGeekUK? Will he ever be the next Bill Gates? Why have I read this far?!) Recent data from ComScore support this, as they found that Ask is more often used by people searching for specific answers to questions… (The clue is in the name)… Search Queries that use questions make up around 5% of searches on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live, but accounts for 15% of Ask’s searches. Sounds like a lot, but remember that Ask only has a 2% market share in online search!

So, it seems that Ask will be restructuring themselves around this as we well know that rivals are increasingly looking at ways to set themselves apart from Google in the competitive world of search. The new Ask site will be launched in the UK on October 20th, but is already live in the US. Sneak preview here, guys.

It looks a lot like Google, and doesn’t try to hide this fact, openly claiming to have “borrowed” design ideas from the mighty search leader. Ask also claim that the re-designed site will be faster, improve search results and produce more relevant results for the user.

Whilst they undoubtably have a challenging task ahead, it’s not all bad news. Even with such a small UK marketshare, the lastest figures from Neilson show that during August, 46m searches were conducted on Ask, which is roughly one in five of all people using a search engine. Maybe the figures will be even better this time next year?

Second Questioning

Right, well, it’s not often I get confused online – being a total geek, I can practically see binary code as a oil painting. However, I’m not fully understanding the concept behind The Second Web.

It says it will be launching in November and seems to be, at it’s most basic, a web-browser within a web-browser. Fundamentally, not a bad idea – especially considering it’s apparently been dreamed up and built by a 16-year old – but huge problems come with it. Second Web has been built with the intention to find a new way of selling advertising space online, and already it’s become a nice little earner: With the option to buy .com-domain names (that already are being used in the REAL internet) for only $5, more than $25,000 has been made before Second Web is even online. This causes a real headache legally, as it can easily break copyright laws and potentially damage brands. For example, if you put www.google.com in the Second Web browser, you’re faced with a page that says nothing but “REMOVED FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT”. What I can see here relates to an earlier post on this blog, where I commented about the ludricous amounts of money domain names can bring to their owners if they ever sell them on. It’s very likely that users have been snapping up big internet brands the (Myspace’s, Ebay’s and MSN’s of the digital world) in the hope that they can sell them back to these companies at an inflated rate.

I might have this totally wrong – maybe companies are happily buy up their domains for a second time in order to re-serve them on this second-level internet browser. In my opinion, it seems unlikely, as all sorts of issues arise; the fact that I doubt the sites will be indexed very well by search engines; the fact that to access this second-level, you need to have the browser-in-a-browser open; the fact that you could possibly be hounded by commerical lawyers for using someone else’s legally owned name. 

I’m also failing to see any solid advertising opportunity, due similar reasons that relate to what I’ve already mentioned – How would paid-search ads for a second-level-site be displayed in the top-level internet?! How (if at all) would top-level sites be advertised, second-level?! It seems to suddenly have a lot of issues and get very confusing when we start to talk about advertising. I’m also worried, it seems to have no relationship to any of the relevent monitoring bodies – eg. the IAB - nor does it appear to be a registered online business.

I might have this totally incorrect (can anyone enlighten me?) and I’m categorically NOT stating solid facts or making accusations. I honestly admire the thought and effort behind this project; there’s no denying it’s in the entrepreneurial spirit, but I can just see so many potential problems and pitfalls with the idea. It seems quite likely to me that established internet users, companies and advertisers will want to protect themselves as much as possible - probably through legal means and actively avoiding the site, but I’m happy to say that I could be totally wrong. All I can really say at this point is, let’s see what happens?

Slow News is Good News…?

Just a quick post today:

Following on from my offhand comments yesterday about the rapidly developing merge between online and offline media (mainly television), the internet and the technology it brings is undoubtly a brilliant means to unite global news. Fine; we all know that, but it seems to me that with the ever-growing presence of the web in people’s lives, the internet iteself is increasingly becoming a subject of news.

Just by Googling the term “internet news” yields 111m search results, and “news ABOUT the internet” gives me 170m. Ok, a lot of this will be indexed back to past issues – some results might not even be that relevant – but all the major players around the globe have either microsites or pages dedicated solely to developments within the online industry, and they seem to be getting bigger and better each day. Whilst obvious players include wide-ranges from BBC technology and the Guardian, through to CNN and the New York Times, it seems the internet (rather ironically) is promoting itself online through other portal news sources, such as the current Yahoo homepage (TWO features this morning: Mi6 recruiting through Facebook and the creation of a new internet watchdog) and MSN, through to the likes of specialist sites like NewsNow and Blinkx. Even blogs can provide reasonably up-to-date news.

The internet is using itself to shamelessly self-promote, and I love it even more for that very reason.