Ask Search Engine, by any Name, is still a Search Engine

A another smartphone app in place of Ask imminent barred at the moment reflects the service's renewed-again focus on Q&A. Users may well maintain noticed a a small number of weeks before with the aim of the "search" button on the Ask Web situate was swapped barred in place of single with the aim of says, as a substitute, "Ask." scratch McCann, Ask's VP of engineering, says the service "got a lift" on queries just now similar to making with the aim of alteration.

But by some refer to, Ask is still a search engine. The another mobile app, which skin texture a Q&A organization with a social part, is still better in place of searches than it is in place of individual queries. Indeed, whilst you basic wear out the app to ask a question, it will return answers from its search engine, which includes more than 500 million Q&A pairs from around the Web, according to McCann.

While a search app, it's fine, on a level with Google and Bing. It has the fussy voice query function with the aim of these apps maintain, too.

While query engine, though, I unearth Ask unimpressive, both on the Web and on a mobile device. The quality of answers is not prohibitive. To convalesce answers, users can join networks of citizens and "follow" contacts to find out more answers from citizens they trust. Users can associate their accounts to Facebook or LinkedIn logins to join up with other Askers they know on folks networks. But there's not virtually the same perceive of conversation or newspaper writing as you contract on a the another scorching Q&A situate Quora.

One informative element with the aim of McCann promised in opportunity versions but not at this point yet: Location awareness. A geo-locating Q&A app would be able to return under fire and informative results to McCann's sample query, "How long is the line by the side of the Apple put in storage appropriate in a jiffy?" Ultimately the app will know someplace questions are being asked and be able to motivation questions to citizens in the appropriate regions to contract high-quality answers. That may well further the Q&A element well beyond someplace it is in a jiffy.

Ask is two things, single of which is quite high-quality. Its question-based search engine is strong and worth using. But as a community-powered Q&A situate, it has a fate of growing still to resolve.