Ask.com rebrands as social search engine

Stalwart search engine Ask.com has unveiled its new look to the public, returning to its Q&A roots by supplementing search algorithms with human assistance.

The new website aims to provide a solution for web users seeking urgent or more reliable responses to tricky questions not available on the internet by incorporating social networking features that allow people to submit queries directly to other users.

In an official blog post, Ask.com explained: "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."

In its beta form, users can only access the service through invitation. By offering "the capability to pose questions to real people", the new Ask.com aims to answer "those complex, subjective and/or time-sensitive queries that, no matter how advanced, computers simply can't address."

This rejuvenation of the somewhat struggling search engine - which currently ranks fourth in the US search market with a 3.6 per cent share, according to comScore - may allow it to distinguish itself as a viable alternative to the likes of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!

Or, as the blog post puts it: "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."


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