Ask.com Blog

How Does Seattle's Ask Look In Tights?

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:43:48 -0700

If you’ve visited our Seattle Asks website, are a regular reader of this blog, or just live in glorious Seattle, you’re aware of our campaign to (1) ask Seattleites what irks them most, and (2) make it better.

Late last week, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that our quest to solve Seattle’s problems has attracted some very special help.

Meet Answer Man and Question Mark Boy, intrepid heroes-at-large set loose on Seattle’s emerald streets. Traversing the city at question-speed, they utilized their advanced powers of inquiry to poll locals on which Ask project should make the final cut.

Witness this dynamic duo in action!

To learn more about the three options and see the latest polling results, visit SeattleAsks.com. And come back here on May 16 to discover the winning solution…same question-time, same question-channel!

—Ask.com

Here’s a video from Ask-er Ken Grobe. He took our two-day...

Wed, 09 May 2012 18:52:00 -0700

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

Here’s a video from Ask-er Ken Grobe. He took our two-day Hackathon and condensed it into two minutes!

For more on the event, check out these blog posts:

Hackathon Time!

Why Ask Hacks

Hackathon: And The Winner Is…

—Ask.com

Seattle: The Polls Are Open!

Tue, 01 May 2012 08:02:04 -0700

Tell Us What You Want. We’ll Take Care of the Rest.

Dear Seattle:

You might have seen in our earlier post that we’re granting you a wish. Today, it’s happening: we kicked off our “You Asked, We Answered” campaign, designed to make the irksome things in your life (well, one of them at least) a little easier.

Today Seattleites will see Ask sprinkled around the city. We’re hitting the streets to talk with people in person, hang banners over heavily trafficked areas, and more—all to find out what people really want so that we can make it happen. Ask will grant the thing that gets the most votes.

So which of these will you vote for?

Ease the morning commute. We heard that the Seattle morning commute can be pretty rough. Vote for this, and Ask will partner with Caffé Vita to brighten up the post-Memorial day commute with free coffee at multiple Park & Ride locations.

Minimize stadium traffic. We also heard that Mariners games can be one of the toughest spots to get home from so, if this is the number one request, Ask will provide transportation home after a game at Safeco field. That way traffic will be our problem, not yours.

Save the wading pools. Ask will chip in funds to keep community wading pools open, many of which are in danger of closing without some extra help.

How To Vote:

We’re giving you options how to get in on this:

1) Go to www.seattleasks.com to make your voice heard (be sure to share your vote with your friends)

2) download the Ask.com Pollroll app for iPhone

3) Street teams are on the scene at local hotspots today—find them, and let them know what you want!

Polling will be open for the next two weeks and results will be announced later this month.

It’s just another way Ask.com is the answer to your problems.

Happy voting!

—Ask.com

District Oakland, Our New Favorite Neighbor

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:01:05 -0700

Bay Area tech industry folks who’ve survived the last bubble or two will be familiar with District, an SF wine bar/restaurant and key lunch/happy hour/event spot. Multiple company ideas have no doubt hatched at their SoMa location. Lucky for us, They’ve opened up their second spot near us here in Old Oakland. We attended the soft-opening celebration, tipped a few among the exposed brick, and availed ourselves of many passed apps as Steve McQueen’s “Bullitt” played on the big-screen TV.

We also chatted with District co-owner Jon D’Angelica, who told us that the downtown location takes advantage of the area’s business centers, including its growing tech presence. “It just so happens we’re surrounded by (tech companies): Ask.com…Pandora…Oakland is a social hub.”

The new element to Oakland’s District? A whiskey list, curated the same way they do their wines. We know a few of our Product Managers who look forward to that.

—Ken Grobe, Ask.com

Get Ready, Seattle!

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:36:00 -0700

If you’re a Seattleite, you’re in luck. Ask.com is coming to the Emerald City to grant you a wish.

We’ve asked around and discovered three problems that many of you would like addressed (based on our research). Your vote will determine which one you want solved the most.

Come visit SeattleAsks.com (or check your Pollroll app) starting May 1 to vote. On May 15 we’ll tally your votes and get to solving.

Seattle is just the first city on our quest to (1) find out what irks city residents most, and (2) make it better. After all, problems are solved by answering questions—and that’s what Ask.com does best.

Go Mariners,

Ask.com

Hackathon: And The Winner Is…

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:03:26 -0700

Let’s be honest. You’re expecting the moral of this series of Ask Hackathon posts (see 1 and 2) to be, “Everybody won!” Not going to happen. Sorry. We’re proud, but we’re not cheesy.

We had actual winners, who won bona fide trophies and prizes for services that you’ll see launched later this year.

That said, everyone at the Hackathon had a good time, learned new stuff, and came up with strong concepts. It’s amazing what smart people can do when email and meetings are taken off the table for even one day.

Welcome to the Science Fair

As you’ll recall, this Hackathon had a theme: services, both internal and external. VP of Project Management and Hackathon co-leader Alisa Barnes explains it thusly: “We want to be able to serve up answers anywhere by creating things that people are going to be able to use in more places—(for instance) that a third party could use or syndicate in some way.”

After the first day of brainstorming, concepting, and building came day two: presentations. Affectionately called “the science fair,” each team presents their concept, via demo and/or PowerPoint presentation, to a roving panel of judges: Alisa, VP of Engineering Nick McCann, EVP of Business Operations Shane McGilloway, Chief Product & Technology Officer Lisa Kavanaugh, and CEO Doug Leeds.

One project leveraged Twitter, YouTube, open APIs, and widgets of various stripes. Another focused on user-specific page optimization to lower email bounce rates. Still another incorporated a real-time element to questions and answers that included live video. Our judges reviewed, listened, asked questions, and ultimately chose six finalists.

These finalists presented to the entire company, and were evaluated not just by the judges, but the company at large , plus a guest judge, Josh Meyer, CEO of People Media, who watched the presos via videoconference.

It All Comes Down To This

Once the judges returned from their chambers (AKA Doug’s office), the winners were…a hashtag-aggregation service which won the Judges’ AND Audience awards, and the aforementioned video-driven Q & A service, which won the Peoples Choice award.

After the ceremonies, the victors headed back to their desks with trophies and new iPads and Apple TV devices. The judges made plans to regroup to see how many of these ideas could become integrated within the product roadmap. And everyone got a taste of where this company is headed. If we can get there, THEN everybody wins.

Have any ideas for great new services? Share them in the comments below.

Just kidding. Please don’t do that. BUT, if you have any comments about this three-part series of Hackathon posts, we’d love to hear them. Especially the nice ones.

PS: if you want to work at a place that holds regular Hackathons, check out our job listings. We’re hiring!

—Ken Grobe, Ask.com

Why Ask Hacks

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:30:00 -0700

For those of you not familiar with the standard company hackathon, it’s a department-wide event where engineers create new(ish) products and services in a short amount of time without having to sweat the standard company process (QA, L&P, general production readiness).

Ask.com cranks that up a notch. Here, we hack the whole company.

Busting Routines, Building Teams

At any company, It’s all too easy to get caught up in roles and deadlines and forget to step back and think more creatively. That’s why our Hackathons start by encouraging teams to cross-pollinate. For 24 hours, UX designers and product managers pair with operations personnel, engineers, support staff, marketers, etc.—taking everyone out of their comfort zones and, hopefully, exploding any bad habits.

“Our Hackathons have many tangible benefits—only one of which is actually launching a product.” Ask CEO Doug Leeds offered. “Sometimes it’ll be the people who worked together, saying, ‘You know, the thing that we worked on (for Hackathon) didn’t necessarily apply to current roadmap—but I like working with you. Let’s continue to team on interesting things.’”

Cracking Code, Going Agile

When your goal is day-to-day maintenance and reliability, there’s often a tendency to rely on legacy systems and code. One of VP of Engineering Nick McCann’s favorite elements of the event is setting his engineers free to work with new and different technologies: Node.js, NoSQL variants…the list goes on.

“We normally code apps in C/C++ or Java.” Nick explained. “But let’s say that (a Hackathon team) decides to create theirs in Node.js (a newer language). It gives them a full day to experiment and work with this language—making our engineers better rounded.”

Case in point: when we implemented Pollroll—our first Hackathon contender to be launched as an app—we did it in Node.js and used Redis as the data store.

The success of our multi-disciplinary Hackathon teams also helps us speed the current transition of our product development process from the classic “waterfall approach” to a modified single-team/agile/scrum structure (If you’re not familiar with the terminology, just know that it’s a good thing). ;-)

Creating a New Culture

But the most Ask-specific goal of our two-day company-hack is our plan to forge a company culture of creativity Ask. We began it in earnest months ago with our “Funnovation” applied improv sessions, to encourage and farm innovation. The Hackathon—a full day of intensive email- and meeting-free collaboration—is proving a natural extension as we make the time to execute the best ideas.

Sure, we want to create the next great service (more on that—and our winners—in Wednesday’s post)…but our Hackathons go beyond that. They’re a pilot program for what we want Ask to be: unified, nimble, supportive, and above all, innovative.

Here’s a few more photos from the event itself. Tune in Wednesday when we cover the presos, the judging, and the victors.

How does your company drive change—and how do you *wish* yours would? Let us know in the comments below.

—Ken Grobe, Ask.com

Hackathon Time!

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:13:00 -0700

For an entire day last week, you could walk the halls of Ask and hear next-to-no activity—that is, until you passed the conference rooms. There, teams of six typed frantically on laptops, sketched formulas on whiteboards, talked logistics. Translated: the Ask Hackathon was in full swing.

Ask’s quarterly Hackathons are two-day events: one day to concept and one half-day to present. The goal: come up with an idea and present to a panel of judges. Our team of judges gauge ideas based on potential business impact, creativity (both in concept and in use of existing technologies), and quality of pitch.

The winning ideas receive development resources and bragging rights. The losing ones still give our people the chance to leverage the latest technologies, try non-traditional processes, and spread their wings creating something new.

When We Say “All-Hands”…

Perhaps more important, our Hackathons aren’t just for our engineers or product teams. We open the event up to the entire company. Members from our design, operations, and marketing teams get involved. Even our finance and legal departments pitch in to devise, package and execute ideas to create the next great company innovation.

Last quarter’s hackers were encouraged to come up with virtually any idea that would benefit the company—and they responded with two dozen presentable concepts. One of these evolved into Pollroll, the mobile app that Ask launched at this year’s SXSW conference to great acclaim. This time around, Hackathon heads Nick McCann and Alisa Barnes focused this quarter’s teams to create a new service (or use an existing or third-party service in a new way). Aside from that, the only rules were (1) be in the office, and (2) be creative.

Teams Working: Do Not Disturb

If you knew where to look, the company was buzzing. Phrases like “social signals,” “aggregated for you,” “iPad app,” and “pulling links from I.M.” bounced through the halls. As did, for some reason, Marketing Director Robbie Waeschenfelder’s spot-on George Takei impersonation.

Mid-way through Day One, in a common area near the marketing department, six Askers leaned forward from white leatherette couches and devised ways to get celebrity gossip more conveniently. In another room, the team from the Campbell office bounced between their laptop screens and their whiteboards. Another team pitched out names for their new service, but had trouble finding an acronym that didn’t sound like “murder” (spoiler alert: they found one)

Stay Tuned…

Come by the blog on Monday for a more in-depth look at the teams and how they collaborate—plus, find out why our Hackathons are a pilot program for how we’ll approach our products and services in the future.

Then come by on Wednesday to find out what some of our top brass has to say about the Ask Hackathon, and take an in-depth look at the judging…and the winners!

In the meantime, enjoy these snapshots of day one. Have any hackathon memories from your own companies you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments section below.

—Ken Grobe, Ask.com

What does the Ask team do on a rainy day? Play with floating...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:48:16 -0700

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

What does the Ask team do on a rainy day? Play with floating sharks of course!

Ask Celebrates Pi Day With Pie!

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:21:35 -0700

What better way to celebrate Pi Day than eating some good ol’ fashion pie! At exactly 3:14pm today, Ask.com employees were treated to delicious pies in honor of the mathematical constant that is the ratio of any Euclidean circle’s circumference to its diameter – approximately equal to 3.14. Hence, why Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th. Do you know how many digits of Pi are actually known?

Sheree Polonsky, Public Relations

Ready, Set, Roll: Pollroll Now Live

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 06:30:06 -0800

As folks are packing their umbrellas for what looks to be a rainy weekend in Austin, we wanted to tell you about a visual polling app live in the Apple iTunes store today that should prove useful – if not super entertaining —at SXSW. No, it’s not expressly for SX, and will be integrated into the overall Ask Q&A experience after the conference, but we thought the cacophony of events, panels, brands and crowds at SX would provide a great opportunity to test it out.

So, what is “it?” Drumroll…

Pollroll is a new app brought to you by Ask that will deliver people quick answers to any question, while they’re on the go. It’s a lightweight app designed to facilitate the creation, distribution and sharing of poll questions and results. Field a poll, take a poll, or share a poll. And because Pollroll lets users include comments along with their vote, it combines the instant gratification of a poll with the answer depth and social context of Q&A.

Why Pollroll? We saw our users leveraging the Ask Q&A community as a polling mechanism and thought, why not make it easier to set up a quick poll, survey others about anything— from favored restaurants to the best apps—and then share those results? SXSW is a great testing ground for Ask to play with this polling functionality, leveraging things like social connections and location, and we plan to use these learnings to better integrate polling into our flagship mobile app and site.

Some of the features include:

- Visual polling: Create a poll around a picture you just snapped, or use the in-app image search to include with your poll

- Filter responses: View responses from anyone, or filter by your friends or those in a specific location

- Get context: See comments to understand why respondents voted the way they did

- Browse: Find, take and share more than 1,000 polls and counting. You can also browse user polls based on recency, popularity, location or social connections.

Download it now at http://www.ask.com/pollroll

See you at the Salt Lick.

Do You Watch Your Phone More Than Your TV?

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:46:00 -0800

TechCrunch posted an interesting article yesterday explaining a survey conducted by InMobi of 20,000 consumers. The findings show that people spent more time on the mobile web then watching TV. Essentially, people are “watching” their phones more than they are watching their television. People use their mobile devices all throughout the day, including 67% of the time lying in bed and 47% of the time waiting for something. Do these findings relate to how you use your mobile device?

Quipol

Sheree Polonsky, Public Relations

Ask.com Reveals Oscar Night Predictions

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:02:00 -0800

As everyone gets ready to tune-in to the 84th Annual Academy Awards this weekend, we decided to roll out our very own red carpet predictions for the night’s winners and losers based on top questions asked on Ask.com by more than 100 million users. To help celebrate the Oscar predictions and nominees we sent some star-studded cookies to a few friends as a teaser.

The predictions envelope please…

George Clooney nabs his second career Oscar as Best Actor.

Viola Davis edges out Meryl Streep to win her first Best Actress Academy Award.

The Descendants takes home top prize as Best Picture.

Veteran actor Christopher Plummer will take home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Octavia Spencer earns the golden statue for Best Supporting Actress.

Michelle Williams leaves us speechless, winning best dressed of the night.

Rooney Mara’s ensemble will be a red carpet disaster.

Charlize Theron will bring her mama as her date.

Woody Allen will be a no-show.

Biggest upset? Brad Pitt not going home a winner.

Regardless of which stars win or lose, the Oscars are always a night full of surprises. So whether you are hosting an Oscar party or relaxing with a bag of popcorn, get ready for a night filled with the glitz and glamour only Hollywood can bring.

Oscar Treats

Brad Pitt

Rooney Mara

Michelle Williams

- Sheree Polonsky, Public Relations

Wishing You A Happy Valentine's Day!

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:28:00 -0800

All of us at Ask.com want to wish you lovely Valentine’s Day! Lot’s of people have questions about this holiday, have you ever wondered who St. Valentine was? Or how this holiday began? Or what other countries celebrate V-Day? If so, just Ask!

How do you plan on spending Valentine’s Day this year?

Emily Kidder, Knowledge Engineer

The Show Must Go On...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:48:00 -0800

Sunday night the biggest musical artists from all over the world came together at the Grammy Awards to celebrate the best in music, but also mourned the passing of one of music’s most legendary voices, Whitney Houston, who passed away on the eve of the Grammys at the Beverly Hilton.

Congratulations to Adele and all the winners at the 2012 Grammy Awards!

And Whitney Houston, your awe-inspiring voice will be missed and remembered forever. Rest in peace.

-Emily Kidder, Knowledge Engineer

Need Valentine's Day Ideas? Ask Users Give Their Advice!

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:06:00 -0800

Valentine’s Day is only a week away and Ask users are providing answers to all sorts of Valentine’s Day related questions. Do you know what you will give your Valentine? Or how you will spend that special day? Every Day all of these answers and more are being answered by Ask users leading up to the big day. Here is a quick look at some of our top Valentine’s Day questions and answers from real people in our Ask community.

What should I get my girlfriend for Valentine’s Day?

Ask users suggest flowers (specifically roses and orchids), candy, a watch, any kind of personalized gift, jewelry or a romantic letter. Ask users also recommend sending the flowers to her school or work for an even bigger impact.

What should I get my boyfriend for Valentine’s Day?

Users recommend buying his favorite cologne, a mug engraved, clothes, a watch or video games. Ask users also recommended baking fresh cookies.

How should my significant other and I spend Valentine’s Day?

Community members agree that going to dinner at a nice restaurant is a great way to spend Valentine’s Day. However, if you are on a budget, Ask users think a home-cooked meal is a romantic and thoughtful idea. Other ideas mentioned were seeing a movie and going for a picnic.

What is a Valentine’s Day gift that I can give my best friend?

Top answers from Ask users were a nice perfume or a charm bracelet.

Should men receive gifts on Valentine’s Day?

83% of Ask users say yes, Valentine’s Day is a day for both men and women to feel loved.

What do you do if someone that you don’t like gives you a present on Valentine’s Day?

100% of community members agree that saying “thank you” is the best way to handle that tough situation.

Do you have Valentine’s Day advice you want to share? Let us know!

Sheree Polonsky, Public Relations

Better bundle Up For 6 More Weeks Of Winter!

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:06:48 -0800

In tradition of Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil the Groundhog emerged from his burrow around 7:30am ET and saw his shadow, which which means we will have six more weeks of winter.

Punxsutawney Phil is not the first Groundhog to predict the beginning of the Spring season, this tradition started among Pennsylvania German communities in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the tradition may seem silly to some, thousands of people gathered in Pennsylvania to see what Phil’s prediction would be this year. If you missed the main event, check out the live stream here.

Sheree Polonsky, Public Relations

Poll Question: Facebook IPO

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:58:00 -0800

Hey All! We are playing with the idea of using polls on our blog to gauge how our users feel about certain topics. Check out our first poll below! What do you think?

Quipol

Countdown to the Oscars

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:03:57 -0800

Hollywood is all abuzz this morning, because the nominations for film’s most prestigious awards were announced. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo was honored with 11 nominations, and The Artist was close behind with 10. So which nominations were a surprise, and who got snubbed this year? Many are happily surprised with the supporting nominations for popular comedy actors Melissa McCarthy and Jonah Hill, and agape at the lack of Best Actor nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio and his performance as J. Edgar Hoover.

So who do you think will win this year’s top Oscar honors? Will the showdown between good friends George Clooney and Brad Pitt end in one taking home the coveted statue, or will newcomer to the Oscar scene Jean Dujardin best them both for his turn as a silent film actor in The Artist? Will Meryl Streep win her third Oscar for portraying Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, or will Michelle Williams triumph for becoming Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn? Here at Ask.com, we’ll be watching the show on Sunday February 26, and updating our answers live to make sure we have the most up-to-date info possible! And in the meantime, there are so many movies to watch!

Emily Kidder, Knowledge Engineer/Answer Geek

Thank you, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:39:00 -0800

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

― Martin Luther King, Jr.