June 5, 2008

Answers.com to Integrate with a Growing Wikianswers.com

Answers.com is planning to integrate some of sister site Wikianswers.com results in order to provide a better user experience, according to Reuters. Fast growth on Wikianswers.com is spurring what CEO Bob Rosenschein is calling a 'cross-pollination' of the sites. Included in the plans is a shared search bar.

Wikianswers has grown to 2 million page views per day, up from 250,000 a day in early 2007. The site is now at an 18.35% market share as of March 2008, stealing market share away from Yahoo! Answers, which dropped 21% from March 2007. Overall, traffic to answer sites grew 118% from March 2007 to March 2008.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

March 26, 2008

Hearst Jumps on Answers Bandwagon, Acquires Answerology

Searchers want answers, not just results. That's something Hearst Magazines is apparently abundantly aware of with its acquisition of Answerology, a relationship advice site. With Google becoming more of a destination site than a portal, companies like Hearst need to compete online by offering a robust destination site of their own. Hearst is poised to do just that with the addition of Answerology, which allows users to post questions anonymously and select specific demographics in which to seek answers from.

"Service journalism is all about helping people find answers to their questions, from trusted experts. That's what we do in our magazines and on our magazine-branded web sites every day. Answerology offers us a new type of service journalism, using a 'wisdom of the masses' model built on the expertise of users who are like you," said Chris Johnson, VP, content and business development, Hearst Magazines Digital Media.

If wisdom of the masses proves to be more valuable than wisdom of the algorithm, companies like Hearst stand to benefit monumentally. Answers sites saw significant percentage increases in traffic last year.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:36 AM | Permalink

November 8, 2006

In The Election Results Race, Yahoo's The Winner

Like many Americans, I wanted to know what was up with the vote in the US midterm elections this morning. As a search analyst, I then wanted to know how the search engines performed in helping me find out. The results are in! Yahoo's the winner by far, but I'd still take the New York Times over it. Come along for an illustrated tour.

Google told us last month that Google Earth was all geared up to be an election guide. That's great if you've downloaded Google Earth and wanted to learn more before the election. But how about a quick, fast summary of what happened yesterday? What's Google got for us?

The Google home page is as minimal as always, no help there -- not even a special logo as in the 2004 race.

How about a search for "election results," which I think is a fair query to try. After all, using Google Trends, I can see a huge spike for that term after the last elections in the US:

I also checked the volume for just "results," and that was even higher whereas "elections" was much lower (see them all compared here). So my two queries for this test were "election results" and "results." On Google, both disappointed.

Here are election results on Google:

CNN's top with 2004 results! I know -- web search is always behind the times. That's why Google inserts that big news results OneBox unit above the regular results. Let's click on the main news link there, which takes us to news results:

Pretty bad. News about the dollar, stock prices -- but who won?!!! I've got to really work to figure this out, especially compared to the New York Times, as I'll show at the end of this story.

Maybe I head to the actual Google News home page:

Nope. I get some headlines telling me about the Democratic house victory, but it could be much better.

FYI, checking on a search for just results, I don't even get the news headlines inserted. Overall, I found Google to be a pretty poor resource.

How about Yahoo? The home page there immediately gives you some news:

If I actually gravitate to the picture and resist the pull of the search box, the "Full elections coverage" link takes me to a Full Coverage page with lots of info, including an interactive results page (my link takes that out of the normal pop-up box, but it still works great):

This is very, very nice. I can see at a glance who is ahead in the race for control of the US House Of Representatives, plus with a click I can check out the Senate or governor races. Selecting any state also gives me the information about races with that state.

I love this. It very similar to what impressed me at the New York Times. I hope Yahoo searchers found it. However, I suspect many bypassed it. To understand why, let's do that search for election results:

Similar to Google, Yahoo inserts a big "News Results" shortcut unit above the regular results, to help detour searchers into the freshest results. Of course, searcers might bypass that. If so, unlike Google, Yahoo has managed to get the CNN 2006 results page up rather than the CNN 2004 page. Nice. After that, there's Fox News 2006. But c'mon -- Yahoo's own special election results are third. This is one case where I'd totally applaud a little hand manipulation to get that to the top, especially to highlight that interactive results summary page.

Still, the web search results for this particular day at Yahoo far outshine Google. That's almost certainly due to some human editing, which is fine. Along with the sites I've mentioned, you get the New York Times politics page, USA Today's politics page, C-SPAN's 2006 results page, the ABC News politics page, CBS News's 2006 page, politics from the LA Times, then the Washington Post's 2006 results page. All of these are excellent choices. If Yahoo did human intervention to make this happen, kudos to them. You can check out a snapshot of the entire page here.

Over at Google, nothing is either timely or general enough. The Virginia state election board, California election info, assorted things dating from 2004 -- then oddly Virginia and California get another bump for their 2006 pages. Ugh. See the entire list in the snapshot here.

What happens if we detour into the news area that Yahoo promotes at the top of the page? Disappointment:

Yes, relevant news stories. And the image results to the side are kind of fun. But some hand help could have made a difference. How about a promo for that awesome election map of Yahoo's?

Let's go over to Ask, where I had high hopes. Ask has made a big deal of its special Smart Answers for the election, and they are cool. But will I see them? Yes, if I search for election:

I'd also get to this box if I went to the Ask home page and clicked on the Election Day link there:

But for election results (what I believe to be the more popular query), all I get is a small news unit:

The news unit will take me over to some news results, but like Yahoo's, these aren't thrilling. It's pick and choose through what you want, rather than any type of easy overview. As for a search on just results, that doesn't even bring back the news unit at all.

The overall web search results, similar to Google, are underwhelming. Nothing really helpful for the 2006 results pops up (see the full results in the snapshot here).

Even the special Smart Answers box, had it shown up, isn't that helpful for what I want now -- RESULTS! None of the featured links with it takes me to results.

Microsoft, what have you got for me at Windows Live Search? On the home page, nothing. For search on election results, it's disappointing old or non-targeted results (screenshot here). Unlike the others, there are no news results inserted above these. A search for just results is no better. If I specifically try a news search for election results, as with the others, there's no attempt to get me a comprehensive overview. It's up to me to review each story and hope for a good match.

Ironically, at the largely overshadowed MSN site, similar to Yahoo, I get a big election photo on the home page along with links, including one called "state-by-state results" that leads to MSNBC here. And over there is a pretty neat "Democracy Dashboard" giving me that type of overview I wanted:

It's a pity Windows Live didn't reach out to either MSN or MSNBC and do something special to point to this or somehow integrate it into the results.

What about AOL? From the home page, it's pretty easy to spot a link to a AOL election page with results for the House, Senate and more:

Searching for election results brings back disappointing Google listings in the main results. However, the new FullView column does a good job of dividing news into elections overall, US Senate coverage, US House coverage and more. And clicking on any of the "View all" links brings up the special AOL election page (see the full page here).

Now to the New York Times. I headed over there pretty much by chance. There are any number of newspapers I might of thought of off the top of my head, and usually its my original home town paper of the Los Angeles Times. But I hit the NY Times today, and boy was I glad.

Right on the home page, above the "fold" is an easy-to-spot election map. In seconds, it organized the most important information I was looking for into a way for me to know what was going on:

Drilling into the full map was even better. There, I could click on any state -- in particular the undecided ones -- and see the current situation:

Just when I was thinking "what if," I saw the "Create Outcomes" tab where I could click on a state and flip it to the Democrats or the Republicans to see how it might go with the Senate. Outstanding!

Other newspapers or web sites might have done as well with similar displays. If so, my apologies that this wasn't a review of the best election results sites. Instead, it was really meant to see how well the search engines held up as information resources for this particular news event.

Overall, I've written many times before that there's a role humans can play in search results. Today -- this was a perfect example of that. Yahoo almost certainly put some human effort into crafting results, and it was the clear victor in terms of quality of what was coming up in web search listings. AOL comes in second, again where human effort has helped its FullView listings help make up for the poor crawler-based results from Google.

In third, I put Google and Ask. Google's results were poor, but at least it floated some news results that may have helped. Ask, I was rooting for. But that Smart Answers box simply wasn't showing up for the queries I thought people were doing. Even if people were getting it for "election," it wasn't helpful to get election results. I really appreciate the effort, and if this had been for something other than actual results, Ask would have been great. In last place -- Windows Live.

This campaign of sorts is also one of those classic "what if" races. With just a little more effort, Yahoo would have had a landslide victory by getting people to its great overview page. The same is true for AOL. Ask, with just a bit more thought, could have had that box coming up for "election results" rather than just "elections" and added some links to get people to actual results. Windows Live, if it had remembered its MSN origins, might not be in last. And Google? A company that's all about organizing information might not have put in such a poor performance if it used some human power in the way the New York Times did.

Postscript: See also Case Study: Digg Versus Google News Traffic from me on my personal blog that covers how this article ultimately brought in lots of traffic from Google News from those unable to find election results there, along with lots of other data and a comparison to traffic from a top story at Digg on the same day.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:17 AM | Permalink

November 2, 2006

Ask.com Launches Elections Smart Answers

Ask.com launched some new smart answers for the upcoming elections. You can do a search on elections 2006 to see "General Elections are Tuesday, November 7, 2006." The smart answer also gives you links to the Republican Party and the Democrats web sites. Additional quick links they give within the smart answers include; Analysis by Poll Reports, Race Profiles, Key Races, Key Issues, Races by Issue, and Congressional Districts Map. The additional resources include Candidate Reports, Ballot Items, Campaign Fact Checking, Campaign Funding, and Evaluating Initiatives. Finally, you can also break down by state by searching for New York state elections. I have taken some screen captures also.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:37 AM | Permalink

October 19, 2006

October 10, 2006

Sizing Up Search Engine Instant Answers

The major search services have all be increasing their efforts to deliver focused "answers" to many types of queries. They each take a different approach to this process, with names such as Ask's Smart Answers, Yahoo's Shortcuts, Google's Onebox results and Microsoft's Instant Answers. In today's SearchDay article, A Closer Look at Ask's Smart Answers, SEW correspondent Brian A. Smith kicks off a four-part series that takes an in-depth look at each of these programs, illustrating the unique approaches offered by the major search engines.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:09 AM | Permalink

June 9, 2006

MSN Windows Live Launches News & Local Live Answers

The MSN Search blog announced that MSN Search now supports news specific and local specific "live answers." What that means is if you do a search on something news related like, george bush at live.com, you will get news related results at the top. Same deal with local specific searches such as, edison, nj dentist. Google, Yahoo and Ask.com all have this type of feature.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:25 AM | Permalink

January 29, 2006

AOL's "(Quick) Answer" Feature On Web Results Pages

Although we've blogged many times about search engines becoming answer engines for some types of queries with a variety of tools and services including Google "Q&A", MSN "Instant Answers", Ask Jeeves "Smart Answers", and Yahoo Wikipedia shortcuts, we haven't mentioned AOL's (quick) answer feature found at the top of some web results pages.

An AOL (quick) answer should not be confused with AOL "Snapshot" that provides facts, stats, links, etc. to related content from other web sites (including Time Warner properties) that have been assembled by human editors. Here's an example of an AOL Snapshot.

A (quick) answer comes from material autonomously mined from open web sources like Wikipedia, CIA World Factbook, IMDB, and other sites delivered at the very top of a web results page.

Examples: + President of Harvard University + Capital of France + Director of Spiderman

(quick) answer is powered by technology from Teragram based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their website offers info on the specific technology that AOL users to power (quick) answer (called Direct Answer) along info about other categorization and taxonomy technology they market.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:57 PM | Permalink

January 17, 2006

More Instant Answers Now Available on MSN Search

MSN Search's WebLog points out that MSN Search is now home to more Instant Answers (aka "direct answers") as web search engines continue to become "answer engines" for certain types of queries. According to the blog post, MSN has added more than one million facts to their database.

What's new?

+ Baseball Stats: Numerous statistics for historical baseball players and teams along with season data for current players. Stats from Baseball-Reference.com.

+ Football stats: Many lifetime and season facts for popular players and coaches. Stats come from Pro-Football-Reference.com.

+ Weather Statistics: Weather statistics for US states and major cities. Data from NOAA.

+ Government officials: Government leaders and world cabinet officials. Some data via Encarta other data via the CIA's Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments database. This database is updated weekly.

+ Current dates of major holidays and info about how holidays are celebrated. Data from the Office of Personnel Management (U.S.) and Encarta.

More examples in the blog post. Instant Answer results are found near the top of the page directly below the paid lists/sponsored sites.

In 2005 we saw Yahoo, AOL, Google, and MSN Search get more involved in the direct answer space (Y and G have offered some search shortcuts for several years) while Ask Jeeves (they've been offering Smart Answers since 2003) continued to develop and more of them.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:21 PM | Permalink

December 20, 2005

Ask Jeeves Adds Translations, Pronunciations & Synonym Lookups

Word from Oakland today that Ask Jeeves has just added page translation, easier synonym lookups and definitions with pronunciations. Details and examples have just been posted on the AJ Blog.

What's New?

+ Page translations Note the 2nd and 3rd listings on the results page tbat have new "translate the page" links next to the title. Translation is powered by Reverso Translation software. Like with all mechanical translations, caveat emptor.

+ Improved Dictionary Smart Answers Definitions now come The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Terms like define [foo] or what does [foo] mean, trigger the dictionary feature. In some cases, you'll also find a direct link to a thesaurus for the term.

Also, clicking the hyperlink for any term you're defining will take you to even more definitions and info about the word. Ask calls these full reference pages.

Synonyms Along with the link to a theasurus available via the dictionary, you can access synonyms directly by using trigger words like: + Another word for run * Synonyms for travel * speaker synonyms Each synonym is hyperlinked to a dictionary definition of the term. Synonyms also have full "reference pages."

Pronunciations + Along with reading a text definition, AJ allows you to hear each word pronounced (assuming your computer has a sound card and speakers/headphones). Click the sound icon and you'll hear the term delivered as a wave file.

Let's hope 2006 as is strong of a year for AJ's Smart Answers as 2005 was.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:36 PM | Permalink

December 15, 2005

Google Sings a New Tune With Google Music Search

Until today, Google hasn't been a particularly useful service for finding information on bands, links to online music stores or other music related information. That's changed with the introduction of new music-oriented results that are automatically triggered when a Google web search has music-related content. Gary and I offer a rundown of the new feature in today's SearchDay article, Google Adds Music Search Feature , and also describe the music features that have been available at the other major search engines for some time.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 4:31 AM | Permalink

December 14, 2005

Ask Jeeves UK Releases Smart Search Tool for Football Fans

Football fans in the UK (see, I didn't call it soccer) have a new Ask Jeeves Smart Search resource to use and quickly find and access info about their favorite clubs(s) and players. According to Netimperative, the new Smart Search works for, "Premiership, Championship, Scottish Premier League or national football team, as well as Guinness Premiership, Celtic League, and national rugby union teams with more sports and teams to be added in the future." What will you find? A Smart Search box at the top of the page with, "news, fixture lists, and stats for their chosen team, as well as a quick facts box with information such as manager name and team nickname in one package at the top of the search results page."

Smart Search result boxes are also available for top players.

To access, just enter the team name, league name, or player name into the search box.

Here are three examples: + Player + Team + League

Recently, AskJeeves.com released a Smart Searches with recipes and another with video game info. I've also blogged about a favorite Smart Search that contain info about tv programs, new and old.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:28 PM | Permalink

November 27, 2005

New Search Shortcuts from Yahoo

The Yahoo Search Blog points out that they've added a couple of new search shortcuts (They have about thirty now). What's new?

+ Movie Trailers Add the term "trailer" to your movie title query. Here's an example. If available, links to trailers appear near the top of the page

+ Movie Showtimes and Maps Just search a title and a location by entering a title and location or the trigger word "showtimes" and a location. Actually, I blogged about a Yahoo movie showtime shortcut over a year ago. However, the links to ratings and maps are new.

Btw, Ask Jeeves has offered a movie "Smart Search" on web results pages since May of 2004. The Smart Answer box often contains an image of the movie poster and links to trailers, the official site, and reviews (via Rotten Tomatoes). These Smart Answers are available for both new films as well as many cinema classics.

Google also offers links to movie info on web results pages.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:02 PM | Permalink

November 9, 2005

Flight 949, Where Are You?

It's easy to check on the status of major airline flights in the U.S. and Canada, either through Ask Jeeves, Google or Yahoo, or through more elaborate services that offer lots of additional information. Gary offers the 30,000 foot view of the best of these services in today's SearchDay article, Real-Time Flight Tracking.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 6:51 AM | Permalink

October 31, 2005

AllRecipes.com Cooks Up Smart Searches for Ask.com

I recently blogged that Ask Jeeves was offering a new Smart Search with direct links to recipes from the AllRecipes.com database. Today, the Dayton Business Journal offers a profile of this recipe/cooking vertical.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:46 PM | Permalink

October 1, 2005

Ask Jeeves Smart Search Makes Basic TV Program Reference Info a Click Away

When Ask Jeeves (aka Ask.com) launched a slew of new Smart Search options in August I briefly mentioned that info about tv programs was now part of the Smart Search service. However, it was just in the last day or two that I realized the number of tv programs AJ offers Smart Answer boxes for.

Smart Search boxes for television programs often contain a plot overview, link to the official site, episode guides, images, and links to purchase DVD's (if available). I've found Smart Answers for shows currently airing like The OC, 24, Law and Order and The Simpsons. A search for "The Office" shows Smart Answers for both the NBC and BBC versions. Nice. Classics programs including The Andy Griffith Show, Saturday Night Live, The Twilight Zone are Smart Search ready. Even cartoons like Speed Racer and The Flintstones are included.

Ask provides some of the show reference info from Zap2it.com and TV.com.

Let's hope Ask continues to develop this and other Smart Search research tools with more related links and in the case of tv, video clips.

Postscript: I even noticed Smart Answer boxes (on Ask.com) for UK tv classics like Fawlty Towers and Eastenders.

Postscript 2: I also spotted some tv-related Smart Answers on Ask Jeeves UK.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:52 PM | Permalink

September 15, 2005

New Yahoo Instant Search Gives Answers Directly -- No Results Page Required

A weird one for you, but sounds pretty cool. Yahoo's given the heads-up that a new Instant Search feature is to be offered by the time this story goes live. Type in a word, and Instant Search will show you an answer for popular queries in a "speech bubble" directly below the search box.

In other words, say you wanted to search for wikipedia. Type that in, and Yahoo says it will recognize that's a popular query, where the first listing on its results page is often chosen. So, it will suggest that for you. Click in the speech bubble, and you can go right to the page, without having to generate search results.

In a way, it's a "I'm Feeling Kind Of Lucky" feature for Yahoo. Google's trademark I'm Feeling Lucky button on its home page that takes you to the first search result that would have come up on Google, had you gone to the search results page and clicked there. But if you're feeling lucky, you can trust Google, use the button, and it will take you there directly.

Yahoo's Instant Search does a similar thing, only it gives you a preview of where you'll go. So you can decide a bit more if you're feeling lucky before trusting it.

In some cases, Yahoo will take you to a shortcut result or answer. For instance, weather san francisco on Yahoo gives you a Yahoo Shortcuts result first, where the weather forecast is shown right within the results. With Instant Search, the forecast should appear just below the search box, no need even to click to reach it.

Additionally, if you type in a URL, Instant Search is supposed to turn that into a link to take you to the page entered. Misspell a word? A correction should appear, with a link to get results for the corrected word.

Not every query will have Instant Search functionality. Yahoo says it works for the most popular queries only. Behind the scenes, it depends on Ajax to make the magic happen quickly.

But if searchers don't get results, then they don't see ads -- so won't this possibly hurt Yahoo? Yahoo didn't really answer my question on that directly, saying more that they think it will be a cool new feature to enhance the search experience and stickiness of use at Yahoo. How exactly it will evolve will depend on how it gets used.

My interpretation? For some queries, Yahoo doesn't mind if you don't see ads. For many other queries, you'll still need to hit the results page. If this helps many searchers find Yahoo more useful, then it may keep them with the service and generate more queries and ad views, rather than hurt that.

Want to try the feature? OK, you're supposed to find information at Yahoo Next, the Yahoo debut area for funky experimental things like this. You're also supposed to be able to find it from the new Instant Search area. In either place, once you do a search and see the Instant Search speech bubble show up, you're supposed to get an option to make this work on Yahoo's pure search page, if you want it. That's at search.yahoo.com. It's not being offered for the main Yahoo.com page.

How about getting it into the Yahoo Toolbar? Not yet, but Yahoo said it's something they'd look to see if possible.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:01 AM | Permalink

September 8, 2005

Ask Jeeves Offers Smart Search Box with Hurricane Katrina Info

I just noticed that Ask Jeeves is now offering a Smart Search answer, located at the very top of the web results page, when search terms indicate that the searcher is looking for info about Hurricane Katrina. I checked a few other web engines and noticed that AOL Search is the only engine to offer something similar. Other engines only offer news headlines on web results pages.

This new AJ Smart Answer is not only useful but also a good illustration of how Smart Search results can save the searcher time, clicks, effort, and aggravation getting to quality resources (maps, imagery, relief info, etc.) about a particular topic. I'm a big fan of it!

In some cases, Jeeves offers up factual answers mined from well-known web reference tools. In other cases, a Smart Search box might provide direct links straight to quality resources about a particular topic, event, etc. You might want to think of it and similar types of Smart Search results as easy to access "bookshelves" of quality links.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:05 PM | Permalink

August 31, 2005

Google Brings Film Showtimes and Reviews Service to the UK

Google has just introduced their film showtime and review service on the Google UK site. It operates just like the U.S. film info service that went live in February.

Searchers can trigger the Google Film service on Google.co.uk, by entering the terms:

Films
Showtimes
The title of a current film

Results pages contain showtimes and a link to find reviews from various sources. Pages are designed to the searcher to quickly identify positive and negative reviews, to search "within" the reviews, and more. Google Films also shows an "average rating" that's based on all of the reviews in their database.

Film showtimes along with basic info (running times, rating, etc.) is also now available via SMS in the UK. Details and directions here.

If you're looking for info about older films, enter, film: [title] or movie:[title] into a web search box to trigger the service.

The only thing that surprised me was after spot checking reviews for several popular films, I wasn't able to find many reviews published in the UK media. I would think that this content would also be relevant to Google UK users.

Others

Ask Jeeves UK provides a "Smart Search" box at the top of web results pages with direct links to find reviews and showtimes at MyMovies.net.
Yahoo UK and MSN don't provide movie showtime/info shortcuts but both do offer comprehensive film info sites.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:43 PM | Permalink

August 22, 2005

Ask Jeeves Unleashes More Smart Answers

Long before MSN, Yahoo, or Google began including answers (not just links) for specific types of ready reference questions in web results sets, Ask Jeeves was already providing direct answers or what they call Smart Answers.

Today, Jeeves is releasing even more Smart Answers. As I've said before, AJ's Smart Answers along with the other large search companies now provide, continue to turn "web" search into "answer" search for certain types queries.

Ask Jeeves launched Smart Answers in April 2003 with Zip Codes, movie times, and driving directions. Another early Smart Answer (still available and something we now see elsewhere) serves images from their image database directly onto web results pages. Since then, they've launched numerous additions to the service including a big helping 14 months ago.

At that time Jim Lanzone, Senior Vice President, Search Properties, at AJ told SearchDay,

"Smart Search is about providing the right information in the right place at the right time," said Jim Lanzone, vice-president of product management for Ask Jeeves. "We can match up with specialized databases on the fly. We're built to scale Smart Search with others people's data."

One of the things I like about Smart Answers is that in many cases you'll not only get the basic facts listed at the top of a web results page but you'll also find direct links to additional sources of info. These types of links really have the potential to save the searcher time, effort, and aggravation.

What's New So, what's new from AJ today? Here's a list of the new Smart Answers. Each is linked to an example.

World Nations: Quick Facts
US States: Quick Facts

US.

Mammals
Popular TV Shows information
Famous People: Music profiles
Video Games: All major titles plus platform
NASCAR: Races & Drivers
ISBN Search
Periodic Table of Elements
US Area Code lookup
Planets: Quick Facts

Let's hope Mr. Diller is onboard with the Smart Answers service and they keep rolling out. Although it has been tried in the past, perhaps the time has come to build a powerful, open web "fast fact" database. Perhaps this would also be a way for AJ or whatever they'll be called in the future to distinguish themselves from other services. Heck, you could even create verticals for various types of questions (sports, history, current events). These types of services would also work well on the mobile web. Advertising? How about companies sponsoring different "fact" verticals? For example, Nike might sponsor a database full of sports facts. Since geo-location is also possible the same database could be sponsored by various local and/or regional sporting good stores, teams, etc.

Finally, Jeeves should also be promoting Smart Answers to specific user groups. One that comes to mind is educators. The promotion would allow this large group of influential users to know about a service that could potentially save them and their students effort. It could also show them that the Ask Jeeves of 2005 is not the same service that was around in 1998 or 1999. It's been my experience that many teachers who DO know the Ask Jeeves brand still believe that the service hasn't undergone any changes and is still serving up the less than useful results it once provided pre-2001.

It would also be great if AJ would partner with the library community and subject experts to not only identify types of questions worthy of a Smart Answer but also to help choose what sources are most useful and authoritative.

July 26, 2005

Amazon's A9 Adds Online Calculator

Amazon.com's A9 has joined other web engines in offering access to an online calculator that's accessible from any A9 search box. Results appear at the top of a web page results list. You'll spot an icon of an abacus located next the result. This page contains a examples of what the calculator offers. I'm betting that more special features and shortcuts are in the works at A9.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:11 PM | Permalink

July 7, 2005

Google Joins Jeeves and Yahoo in Providing Currency Conversions

Via Google Blogoscoped, word that Google has joined Ask Jeeves and Yahoo in offering online currency conversion rates posted directly onto web results page.

For example: 1 Australian Dollar in British Pounds. More examples here.

Ask Jeeves has offered a currency converter as part of their Smart Search program for over a year. The same thing is true at Yahoo.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:54 PM | Permalink

June 23, 2005

Mamma.com Launches Health Information Vertical

Metasearch company Mamma.com has introduced Health Search, offering real-time search of some of the most authoritative sources of health information on the web. Results for many queries are categorized by topic (including definition, about, symptoms, causes, treatment, FAQ, news, help lines (when applicable) and a metasearch section. In many cases, a "second opinion" link offers an alternative source of information. The press release announcing Mamma Health Search has more information.

Mamma is claiming that the new service "conquers deep web," a boast a lot of companies have been making lately. I plan to take a closer look at Mamma Health and these other "deep web" resources soon, testing them on their own merits as well as determining whether they're really getting at true deep web content—or not. Stay tuned.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 1:30 PM | Permalink

June 22, 2005

MSN Adds Direct Answers With Sports Info

MSN Search is now providing "direct answers" at the top of web results pages with scores, brief bios, stats for baseball and basketball teams and players.

No words as to when direct answers for other sports will become available.

AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo also offer snapshots/shortcuts/smart answers with current sports stats, scores, and info.

Here are a few examples from MSN:

More about direct answers from MSN here and from other engines here. We've also posted about Google's Q&A service.

Postscript: MSN provides more details about the new sports answers here: More on Sports Instant Answers and direct answers it provides in general here: Getting Answers.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:47 PM | Permalink

May 26, 2005

Ask Jeeves Gains "Zoom" Query Refinement & "Web Answers" Features

In today's SearchDay, Chris Sherman and Gary Price look at new features added to Ask Jeeves. The new "Zoom" query refinement feature lets you better locate alternative topics that you may wish to search for. The web answers feature generates answers to questions from content found across the web. More in the SearchDay article, Ask Jeeves Serves Up New Features.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:45 AM | Permalink

April 7, 2005

Google Launches Q&A Service, Answers Directly on Results Pages

I've said for quite some time that search engines will slowly but surely become "answer engines" for "ready reference" or factual types of questions.

Today, Google joins other search providers by offering answers (they're calling it Google Q&A) on results pages. I've been wondering the GooglePlex would begin offer this type of service.

Answers, if available, are placed in a OneBox at the top of the results list. Make sure to not confuse this with the Google Answers service that allows you to interact with human researchers.

Google is mining open web content including material from the Wikipedia for answers versus using material from reference tool like MSN Search does with Encarta.

Ask Jeeves, who has been offering Smart Answers for two years, also mines answers from sources like the Internet Movie Database and WHO2.com Google's "define" feature (a Google Labs graduate) culls definitions, and acronyms from the open web. Here's an example.

How does Google's new service compare to what others offer. To early to say from a few sample queries but from what you'll see linked below, I see it on par with what others offer. Yes, I know it's a beta so we'll be watching closely. Here are a few (very few) examples to give you some idea of coverage. Yes, once again I know it's a beta. (:-: An * means that MSN provided a direct answer for this query. An ** means that Ask Jeeves offers a SmartSearch box for this query.

+ Capital of France *,**

+ Current President of Spain?, * Note: No Google OneBox answer. However, removing the word current from the query does provide a Google result.

+ World Series Winner 1987?, * No Google OneBox answer

+ Where is Mountain View? *, ** No mention of the California city that's home to the GooglePlex )-:

+ Where is Timbuktu, *? No Google OneBox

+ When is Labor Day 2005?, ** No Google OneBox.

+ Who is Lebron James?, *

+ What is RSS?, **

+ Where was Bill Clinton born? Note: Result from Who2.com, a source that Ask Jeeves also uses.

+ Zip Code for Evanston, Illinois, ** No Google OneBox answer

+ Who Shot Abraham Lincoln?, *

+ Author of To Kill a Mockingbird, *

Answer engines are just on the radar screens of large web search providers. Services like BrainBoost offers answers mined from the open web. We've also read about search technology from Kozoru that will soon play in this space. "Know it All" is being developed at the University of Washington.

Yahoo and AOL offer shortcuts that work by entering a "trigger" word along with a search term into the search box. In some cases an answer might be listed on the results page and in other cases a link to a specialized database is provided. Here's an example of Yahoo offering info from the Columbia Encyclopedia about the subject of television. Btw, see this post (from earlier today) about material from Wikipedia coming to Yahoo results pages very soon.

These blog posts from November and February have more about what others offer and a bit of history about placing answers directly onto results pages.

No answers just questions to ponder... Will publishers spring up who just offer verified and dynamic databases of facts ready for mining?

Actually, they already do. Facts.com is one example. They offer a web-based version of the legendary Facts on File service which is available free online from many public and university libraries. I wonder if web search providers or even search verticals might partner with this legendary "fact" provider and mine these database for factual answers. The same thing with the material like xrefer provides. This would not only provide answers but also allow content from highly respected reference publishers to find more users.

Finally, one thing is for sure, ready reference answer services will also be big winners as mobile web search continues to grow. In fact, Google Q&A is now a part of the Google Mobile service. That's cool! Recently, Answers.com, launched a mobile version of their answer oriented search vertical.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:52 PM | Permalink

April 6, 2005

Google Definitions Goes Multilingual

The Google Definitions service is now providing word definitions in languages in other than English, according to the Google Blog. The feature is described here. Exactly what additional languages are now being covered isn't said. Note that Google Definitions are generated automatically by Google and a completely different service from the definition links it provides to Answers.com -- the [definition] link that appears in the blue reverse bar at the top right-hand side of search results pages, next to the query count number. More on that here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:57 AM | Permalink

April 4, 2005

Google Joins Yahoo & Ask With Direct Display Of Stock Market Data In Results

Google has joined Yahoo and Ask Jeeves and is now placing a current stock chart and other info directly into search results pages. Previously, you had to click a second time to get to this info.

For example: if you enter the ticker symbol GOOG, you'll see the current stock price plus today's chart.

Actually clicking on the GOOG link takes you to a set of financial info "tabs" with info from a variety of sources. Google has offered this information for several years. In fact, use the search syntax stocks:symbol (such as stocks:goog), and you skip web search results and instead go right to the financial info tabs.

Yahoo has already had direct display of stock charts in results, as you can see in this example.

Yahoo offers bit less financial info in the direct display, but they do include a couple of news headlines. If you begin your research at Yahoo Finance and enter a ticker symbol you'll find even more info. In fact, this is one of the resources that Google ironically draw upon for its Google's "financial info tabs".

Ask Jeeves offers Smart Search results box with a current stock chart, most of the same current financial data Google offers, and direct links for news and detailed company info via Marketwatch.com

This Google Blog posting has more including info about how to access stock quotes via SMS. 4INFO.net and Synfonic are two other services that offer stock quotes via SMS.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:01 PM | Permalink

March 17, 2005

Getting Answers From Answers.com's CEO

The answer man from News.com has GuruNet CEO Bob Rosenschein -- whose company runs Answers.com -- answering some questions of his own, such why the company will succeed at making money this time, when it failed previously, how it's not competing with other search engines, even though some think it is.

As for search engines having "lists" built into their DNA, that DNA has long been evolving into direct answers, as we've written before. In other words, some people assume that Answers.com is somehow going to wipe out search engines by providing direct answers. The search engines are doing that now, have been doing it and are growing it even more. Our forum thread Who knows Answers.com? looks at this more, with comments from me.

The key thing everyone needs to understand is that search engines are not about spidering 8 billion pages anymore, as Rosenschein puts it. They are evolving into providing answers from spidering or from gather that from any other source that fulfils the role of answering questions. My Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Developments With Consumer Search article examines this more.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:47 AM | Permalink

March 5, 2005

Google's New Weather Shortcut and Similar Services

A post on the Google Blog informs us that Google now has a shortcut that provides a four-day weather forecast in a OneBox at the top of web search results page.

To use this new service simply begin your query with the word "weather" and then provide a location (U.S. only) or Zip Code. For example: Weather Chicago Illinois or Weather 90210 Google's weather shortcut is also available via Google SMS.

Both Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves have provided a shortcut/Smart Search (what Jeeves calls them) for weather info since 2003. A local weather shortcut was first introduced by AltaVista in 2002.

Btw, the weather shortcuts from Ask.com and Yahoo also provide info for major cities located outside of the U.S. A local weather shortcut is also available on some Local Yahoo!s. Examples: Yahoo! UK/Ireland Yahoo! Austalia/New Zealand

Ask Jeeves properties in the UK and Japan also offer Smart Search options including one for weather info. Examples: + Weather in Leeds + Japan Weather 4Info.net, an SMS-based info service, and Yahoo Mobile offer weather and other info for mobile web users.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:35 AM | Permalink

February 19, 2005

Ask Jeeves UK Gets Hello Celebrity Content

First, a brief article on the Revolution web site discusses a new deal that will allow Ask Jeeves UK to use content from Hello! magazine (celebrity news and profiles) for their Famous People Smart Search service.

Second, Ask Jeeves UK is providing search services on the Virgin Radio Toolbar

Posted by Gary Price at 12:20 PM | Permalink

February 17, 2005

Jeeves Creates Smart Search Shortcuts for Blogs and RSS

I've noticed a couple of new Smart Search result boxes on Ask Jeeves serps. If you search for the term blogs or weblog you'll see a Smart Search box (at the top of the page) that includes numerous links with basic info about blogs and RSS that come from AJ's recent acquisition, Bloglines. A search box for the Bloglines search engine is also part of the Smart Result. A Smart Answer for RSS is also online. It includes a link to Bloglines, info about RSS standards from Harvard and links to RSS feeds from Moreover. Placing these links in a single location at the top of results page can not only help someone new to blogs and RSS access basic info quickly and easily but also help promote the Bloglines service.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:21 AM | Permalink

January 25, 2005

More Answers (Not Only Links) from AJ's Smart Search

One of the "Smart Search" tools that Ask Jeeves offers (its been around for about a year) is called Famous People Search. FPS offers biographical info and direct links to key resources about celebrities and newsmakers that are placed at the top of a results page. Info comes from mining specialty databases like Who2.com, AllMusic.com and other sources.

Today, I've noticed that for some types of queries you not only get the biographical info but you also get an answers for certain queries. For example: When is David Bowie's birthday At the top of the serp (before the organic results) you'll see the answer (David Bowie was born January 8, 1947) along with more bio info and direct links. How Old is Robert DeNiro?

On a related note, this is Academy Awards season and AJ provides answers for queries about past Oscar winners. Examples: + Best Picture 2001 + Best Actress 1967 + Best Actor 1972

Posted by Gary Price at 2:23 PM | Permalink

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