July 2011
7 posts
12 tags
Is There Really "No There There" in Oakland?
You know how some places have an image that everybody takes as a given, despite never really knowing why?
Well, when you look for notable quotes about Oakland, the one that comes first is the famous one from the even more famous Gertrude Stein: ”There is no there there.”
Whenever I mention that Ask.com’s Headquarter is in Oakland, I hear that phrase. Thanks for that,...
6 tags
Don't Miss the Perseids Meteor Shower
The night sky is going to be even more impressive than normal over the next few weeks, due to the yearly light show known as the Perseids Meteor Shower. What is a Meteor Shower you ask? Well this particular one is the most visible all year, and is caused by the Earth passing through a trail of debris from the Comet Swift/Tuttle. Visible annually from around July 23rd through August 22nd, the...
12 tags
Lucky Me - Women In Tech
The last few months have presented an interesting collection of experiences, which have reminded me how lucky I am. Wait…not lucky, that’s the story we women like to tell ourselves, deserving, yah that’s it. I recently attended the Churchill Women Execs in Tech Roundtable (#inspired) and heard some stats that truly shocked me regarding women in technology. This led me to some...
6 tags
Questions & Answers = More Ask.com User Activity
We’ve been looking at user behavior in our Q&A community (which is still in beta) and found that people who ask and answer questions tend to boast higher frequency and retention rates - exciting stuff as we look to roll out this feature across all our traffic later this summer. Visitors to our Q&A community are more engaged than our non-community users and have a higher visit rate...
9 tags
Friends Don't Let Friends Use IE6
On August 27 of this year, Internet Explorer 6 will turn 10 years old. That’s ancient in web years! Microsoft is finally making a big push to retire IE6 and developers everywhere are dancing in the streets. Check out the site dedicated to tracking the countdown to <1%:
http://www.theie6countdown.com
For years IE6 has driven web developers batty spending many hours/week resolving browser...
11 tags
Independence Day
It’s Independence Day, but how much do we really know about the holiday? Ask.com users want to know…
What does Independence Day actually celebrate?
Independence Day celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
Thomas Jefferson, as part of the Committee of Five, was the primary author of the Declaration of...
7 tags
Ask.com: We love Our Long-Winded Users!
I recently read a post describing internet research by Chitika Insights, which provided some insights on the comparison of query lengths across various search engines. It is certainly interesting data; however, our placement as the site with the longest search queries is not very surprising since about 40% of queries on Ask.com are in the form of a question. After all, we are Ask.com and our users...
