Get Your Tweet On (and other product updates)...

We've been super busy since the Ask.com Q&A launch a few weeks ago, and wanted to share a few product updates:

First, a big thank you to our users for the feedback (the good, the bad and the ugly!) post launch. Our theme users weren't shy about the fact they miss the look and feel of their themes. Rest assured, we hear you loud and clear - stay tuned for a new feature, rolling out early next week, that will enable homepage content (for theme users) to fade out when the mouse and keyboard are idle, leaving an unobstructed view.

Second, we wanted to shed a little light on the new Tweet Button now featured within the answer for Question of the Day.  Twitter just announced this capability today (you can read more on their blog here) and we’re excited to be a launch partner. The Tweet Button makes it possible for you to easily share information you find on the new Ask.com  - no more jumping through hoops, shortening links or leaving your current site experience to make a Tweet happen.

We’re initially rolling this out on the results of Question of the Day, but ultimately we think this could be useful in a variety of ways – such as sharing an insightful answer from our Ask Community with your Twitter followers. Making it possible for our users to share both questions and answers across their social networks is a huge priority for us, and today is a first step in making that sharing process simple and intuitive.

Let us know what you think of the button, and where else you might like to see it show up!

Jason Rupp, Director, Product Management  & Ben Henry, Software Engineer

The New Ask.com is Here: What’s Your Question?

Back in November, Doug Leeds, President of Ask.com, shared this post providing a glimpse into the future of Ask.com. At the risk of sounding like a bad sci-fi movie, we’re excited to say the future starts now.

Today we’ve officially launched the public beta for the new Ask.com, which combines our proprietary answers technology (specifically tailored to extract questions and answers from the Web) with the human insight of the thriving Ask.com community drawn from our 87 million monthly uniques. Now available on an invite-only basis (you can request your invite here), the capability to pose questions to real people is now possible for those complex, subjective and/or time-sensitive queries that, no matter how advanced, computers simply can’t address.

That means that Ask.com is now uniquely able to offer the most comprehensive and convenient approach to getting answers, combining pages and people to help users find the answers to all questions – even questions for which no answer is published online.

Why the re-energized focus on Q&A? From a macro trend perspective, the explosion of the social Web underscores both the cultural shift and massive technical innovation of the last 15 years. Simply put: people are using the Web as a conversational medium, ergo, consumers are increasingly asking questions (evidenced by demonstrated interest in Q&A from Google, Facebook and an entire cadre of start-ups).

From a product perspective, the new Ask.com is designed to fill some major holes left by search engines through a blend of technology and the strongest asset we have – our users.

Some product highlights we’re particularly proud of:

Proprietary technology designed for Q&A: Our semantic approach is not simply re-purposed search technology. We’ve taken the last year to enhance our offering to locate the most relevant, high-quality answer and display it right at the top of page (surfing through 10 blue links not required).

Largest index of questions and answers – 500 million “pairs” and growing: As the number one brand for asking questions, we have the world’s largest index of questions and answers with the ability to extract questions and matching answers from hundreds and thousands of Web sources.

The human element: To make our community the most effective, Ask.com has the ability to route questions to relevant people based on interests and expertise. This means only the right people will be asked to answer a specific question, reducing spam and question fatigue. Responses from our community will also be indexed and available (depending on level of freshness and relevance) to address future questions posed on Ask.com.

New look and feel: Our site now makes it abundantly clear we are razor-focused on empowering our users to ask and answer questions. You can now access trending information, including the day’s most popular questions, across multiple areas of the site. Learn more detail about our new UI here.

We’ve been heads down for more than a year working on this new Q&A-focused version of the site – both the underlying algorithmic technology and the community components. But today’s beta release is really just the tip of the iceberg. Our roadmap is full of developments that will make this value proposition really sing: leveraging your social network, accessing Q&A while on the go, and more are planned for the near future. Today is Ask’s first step in a multi-pronged strategy to ensure users get fast, concise answers to virtually any question they ask, any time, any place.

With that, please do request an invite to our community and start Asking away. And keep that product feedback coming!

Tony Gentile, SVP of Product & Lisa Kavanaugh, SVP of Technology

 

A New Ask.com

Today is a big day for us here at Ask - we’re launching a new look and feel to our site as well as offering some exciting enhancements to our users’ question and answer experience.

In terms of UI, some of you may remember that we began testing this design back in April. Our goal, quite simply, is to showcase what Ask is all about - - delivering great answers to all of our users’ questions. To achieve this, we’ve put more emphasis on our popular questions section and made the Question of the Day available to everyone, even those who chose a custom theme.  We also listened to your feedback (thanks!) and rolled in new product enhancements, like improved site navigation.  Of course, you will notice there are many aesthetic changes too, such as a new logo and color palette that we hope you’ll enjoy (and if not, you can always select your own theme!).

These updates are all in preparation for some exciting new capabilities coming soon to Ask.  In conjunction with the new design rollout, we’re also launching a beta version of the site where you can get answers from real people - people who are part of the Ask user community. It’s perfect for those questions that need a personal response from someone who knows.  We encourage you to sign up for a beta invite for the opportunity to join us on our mission to provide the best answers to the millions of questions users like you ask on our site every day. 

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback on the new site and thanks for Asking!

Penny Yao, Senior Product Manager & Ummair Waheed, Front-end Application Manager

Thanks Dad!

Ward Cleaver, Mike Brady, Fred Sanford, Cliff Huxtable, Al Bundy, Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin.  Clearly fathers come in all shapes and sizes with a variety of strengths and areas of expertise but the one thread uniting them is dedication to their children.  Most people have strong childhood memories of doing things with their dad like playing catch, washing the car, building a snowman, or reading a bedtime story.  Not to be forgotten are all the sacrifices they make that kids are never fully aware of until much later in life.  Today we dedicate our homepage to fathers in thanks for all they do.  We encourage everyone to thank a dad, yours or someone else’s, for nurturing kids, setting a positive example, and expressing nothing but sheer joy upon receiving the gift of yet another tie.

The Employees of Ask.com

Kicking off the World Cup: Saluting the Passion of 700 Million+ People

It has been four long years since Italy defeated France and the 2010 World Cup tournament in South Africa is finally here!  The most watched sporting event in the world officially kicks off this morning with Mexico’s El Tri going head-to-head with South Africa’s Bafana Bafana.  This month-long celebration of the beautiful game commands a major, captive audience and you can bet that all of us here at Ask will be among the more than 700 million people tuning in to watch. 

Around the world, soccer (more commonly referred to outside of the US as “football”) is more than just a sport -- it is a passion. Here at Ask we receive more than one million questions every day from people concerning all sorts of topics they’re passionate about and we took a peek into our database to identify the most asked questions associated with the World Cup. Not surprisingly, the top questions ranged from World Cup victories to player salaries and offer a glimpse into the minds of soccer fans. Without further ado, our top World Cup questions:

 

1. When is the first World Cup game?

The first match of group play in the 2010 World Cup is June 11, between South Africa and Mexico.

2. Who has won the most World Cups?

Brazil has won the most World Cups with five in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, and 2002.

3. Who is going to win the World Cup?

Your guess is as good as ours, but currently Spain is the odds-on favorite to win.

4. Who is the best soccer player in the world now?

While it depends on who you ask and where they are from, many soccer experts consider Argentina’s Lionel Messi, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and England’s Wayne Rooney the top three!

5. Who is the highest paid soccer player in the world?

If you take into consideration salary, bonuses and endorsements, Barcelona’s Lionel Messi is the highest paid player in the world at £29.6m.  Or, nearly $41 million! 

6. How many soccer fans are there worldwide?

Soccer is enjoyed by almost 3 billion people worldwide. 

7. Who is the best goalie in the world?

While best is always in the eye of the beholder, cases could certainly be made for Spain’s Iker Casillas, Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon and Brazil's Julio Cesar.

8. Who invented soccer?

Soccer-like games existed in ancient Japan and China.  Forms of soccer existed in medieval Europe, but the English standardized its rules in the 1860s.

9. How many hexagons are on a soccer ball?

There are 20 hexagonal and 12 pentagonal surfaces on a standard soccer ball.  

10. What does FIFA stand for?

FIFA stands for Federation Internationale de Football Association.  

To show our support for the world’s most popular game, we’re dedicating our homepage today to all of the players and fans of the 2010 World Cup. No matter what team you’re supporting, we sincerely wish everyone good luck!

The Employees of Ask.com

 

Memorial Day 2010

It's hard to find sufficient words of gratitude to thank our service men and women and their families for the sacrifices they make on our nation's behalf.  For those of us who have not served in the armed forces it can be difficult to fully appreciate the depth of their commitment to the unalienable rights upon which the United States was founded: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  We are in their debt for all that they do and, in order to express our thanks, we are dedicating our homepage to them on Memorial Day.

The Employees of Ask.com

 

Introducing Related Questions

Some of you are likely familiar with our Related Searches offering, where we provide suggestions that are related to your current query. In Related Searches we offer you suggestions that help you further narrow your topic or expand your topic and also include names (if any) that are related to your query. Say you are searching for blueberries, in Related Searches we provide suggestions such as blueberry health benefits, growing blueberries and also suggestions such as strawberries and blackberries.

 

Recently we launched Related Questions, a right rail section where we provide interesting questions that are related to your query.  They are an extension of  the Q&A strategy we announced in November and are designed to help you explore added dimensions of your query.

 

So how does it work?  We take your query terms and search through the questions that other users are asking us, questions that are being asked on the web and questions that are currently being discussed in the news. From these we select and render the most interesting and what we hope will be the most useful questions related to your query.

 

Say you start out asking us who is Obama’s supreme court nominee? We are going to answer your question by letting you know that it is Elena Kagan. Then, in Related Questions we will help you understand much more about the supreme court and also offer questions discussed in the news.

 

Related Questions

Who Selects the Supreme Court Justices

Who Was the First Chief Justice

Who Is the Chief Justice of Supreme 
Court Today

Who Is the President Pro Tempore of the 
Senate

Mcconnell: Is Kagan On Obama's Team?

Can Obama Save His Afghanistan Surge?

 

Or say your niece suddenly wants to know What Causes Waves and you come to Ask.com to get the right answer. Not only will you learn what causes waves you can learn about causes of tides, why the ocean is blue and even how icebergs are formed. Aren’t you glad you asked?

 

Related Questions

What Causes Tides

Why Is the Ocean Blue

Why Is the Ocean Salty

Why Do Waves Break on the Shore

What Is Salinity

How Are Icebergs Formed

 

What if you come to us for regular searches, say chocolate pudding? We give you questions related to it and also remind you of the calories for which you need to watch out.

 

Related Questions

Does Tapioca Pudding Contain 
Chocolate

How to Make Chocolate Pudding?

Who Invented Chocolate Pudding?

How to Make Chocolate Pudding Pie

How to Make Chocolate Pudding Cake

How Many Calories Are in Chocolate 
Pudding?

 

We look forward to answering your questions. Let us know what you think of this new feature.  

 

Kalpana Banerjee

Senior Product Manager

and

The Related Questions Development Team

 

Here's to Moms Today and Everyday!

Mom, Ma, Mommy, Mère, Madre, Mama, Mutter, Moeder.  No matter the language mothers hold a special place in our hearts and we in theirs.  So it is with much gratitude that we celebrate Mother's Day by dedicating our homepage this weekend to these special women in our lives and announcing that we have teamed with Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield to promote the second year of our partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure.  We are especially pleased to work with Dave who has been personally impacted by this issue after he lost his mother to breast cancer 22 years ago.  Ask will donate ten cents to Komen for every person who joins the “Answers for the Cure” program this year (Ask has committed to a minimum donation of $100,000 in 2010).  Like moms, breast cancer, is something that is relevant to all of us.  In 2009 nearly 200,000 cases of breast cancer were diagnosed and one in eight American women face a similar diagnosis during their lifetime.  So if you'd like to help fund life-saving research, education, screening services, and community outreach projects please visit www.ask.com/forthecure to join the Answers for the Cure program and get our special baseball-themed homepage background. 

Jared Cluff

SVP, Marketing

 

Testing a New Homepage

Some of you may have noticed a few changes to our homepage recently as we've recently started testing new versions of our site that highlight our focus on Q&A.  As part of the test we are more prominently featuring the Question of the Day and three popular questions.  The promotional units we introduced in January have proven popular with partners such as Autism Speaks, Avatar, Best Buy, Chili's, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure and so we created a 300x250 ad unit that will allow for larger and more interactive advertisements for our users without diminishing their experience.  You'll also notice some other changes including a new background hue that you can customize by installing one of the themes from the gallery.  In the header we have added links to our Web, Images, and Videos services.  As we mentioned in November, we are focused on providing the best question answering service available; the new design will allow us more flexibility to offer new features that we are hard at work on and hope to share more information about in the near future.  If you haven't yet seen the changes don't worry, you will soon.  Let us know what you think of the new design and stay tuned for more to come!

Tony Gentile

SVP, Product

 

 

Ada Lovelace Day: Who Do We Think Are Great Women in Technology?

Yesterday was the day to celebrate the life of Ada Lovelace, one of the first female computer engineers.

Ada Lovelace Day began as a way to tout the success and inspiration of women in technology - so we asked some of the women of Ask.com to write a bit about the women that inspired them to take up their careers in technology - or that keep them interested in this field.

Valerie Lanard, Software Engineering Manager

I was inspired by the many amazing women around me at University of California, Berkeley's School of Information. There were two truly fearless and amazing female professors - Marti Hearst, a pioneer in search algorithms as well as translating information systems into usable user interfaces, and Pam Samuelson, who introduced me to the complex interactions between technology and law.  The student body itself was half women, technology leaders in their own right who came together from all over the country.  It was an amazing environment, where we were driven by the power of our collaboration rather than pure competition.  I had no idea how perfect the preparation would be for working at Ask.

Christine Vonderach, VP UK Product & Technology

The strength of women in technology resides not only in our ability run and lead technical organizations, but in our ability to shape the future applications, especially social technologies.  Women excel in connecting others and building networks – older generations may think of it as groups like PTOs,  or local book clubs.  But now, as social media moves to the top of the technology world, it allows individuals or groups to be influential over wider geographies, thus increasing the impact that each individual woman is capable of.  This is what inspires me…each woman making a big difference by using technology as a facilitator and making sure that she knows what is possible.

How can we build technology and applications to create opportunities on a massive scale?  Things like...expanding hobbies into careers using sites like etsy.com …empowering women in remote locations to participate in the worldwide stage through companies like Samasource …enable helping others who aren’t in our physical neighborhood via sites like Ask.com that make it easy to find ways to help when disaster strikes or sites like chipin.com where you can gather funds to meet goals.  Additionally, as a mother, I am inspired each day by my children who see technology in a new and fresh way – they see the world in a way that incorporates technology seamlessly with everything they do – no instructions necessary.  

The role of women in technology is not limited just to those of us who chose careers to build it but, as social technologies become more and more mainstream, women are poised to be the driving force behind what succeeds - making the world a better place in the process.

Lisa Kavanaugh, VP Technology

I was actually inspired by the LACK of women role models that I encountered in my education/career. I was inspired by my mom who went to medical school as a single mother, by my high school friend a year ahead of me who majored in civil engineering, by the tiny percentage of women in my computer science program, and the challenge of being one of the few women who made it through and graduated with a computer science degree.

I am inspired on a daily basis by the women I work with at Ask.com.  Smart, strong, powerful women from all different backgrounds who come together to solve challenging problems and contribute in a passionate way.  But most of all, I am inspired by the young girls who, because of the many women who have blazed a path before them, can say without hesitation "I want to be a Software Engineer" when I grow up. Or...as my best friend's daughter says "I want to be a Computer Girl like Mom's friend Lisa".

Carla Borsoi, VP Community

I continue to be inspired by the women around me who use technology in different ways, whether it’s using it to create a from-the-ground-up business (Willo O’Brien) or to help musicians connect with their fans (Corey Denis), or how to help non-profits and NGOs use technology to better help people (Rachel Weidinger). These three women constantly amaze me with the way that they think about using technology to do new things and bring people together.

How does Ask.com fare with females? Our total workforce is 26% female, but women constitute 32% of those with a title of VP or higher. We've created, in Lisa's words, a place to come together to solve challenging problems.