Do you remember this little website called “Ask Jeeves?” Well the “Jeeves” may have drop, but the “ask” is still answering questions and holding its space in cyber world. Chris Heuer interviews Ask.com CEO Doug Leeds about what makes this search engine different from others.
Doug starts off the interview by explaining most people use ask.com when they need an answer to a particular question quickly. This capability makes ask.com different from other search engines like Google or Yahoo. Unlike these search engines, ask.com shows quick answers as results rather than a lot of links to other websites.
Also, Doug talks about the mobile app version of ask.com called “ask around.” Unlike the website, the “ask around” app focuses on realtime conversations located nearby the user to help answer questions and get opinions. Users can join conversations about specific topics in realtime with other users only a few feet away.
One of the qualities that makes ask.com so original and unique is the amount of work it takes to create a strong algorithm. The idea of ask.com is to get people to ask questions and receive quick answers. Doug explains this can be tricky since some people don’t ask questions the same way. Some people use incomplete sentences and rather than a complete question format. Creating an algorithm that could recognize both forms of the format was tricky and confusing.
Chris and Doug go into a lot of detail about the process of ask.com and the future for the company. The mobile app is only one piece of the puzzle for Doug. He has a lot of big plans and more questions to answer.
Interview with Chris and Doug Leeds from Social Media Club on Vimeo.
