Ask.com waves white flag
On the 9th of November 2010 Ask.com announced some very sad news, that they will be letting 130 of their workers go as they change their strategy. They will no longer index the web and instead will entirely focus on becoming a question and answer engine. This means they are closing down a US and a China office, where their web search teams are based.
It is very sad to see another one of the so-called big players in search to go this way, but ultimately I think this is the right move for ask.com. There is a really good blog that goes into a lot more detail that’s definatly worth a read by Doug - one of the employees from ask.com.
The Future of Ask.com
So what can we expect from ask.com now, and are they going to do well in their new market? Is it a niche that they really take hold of and make their own?
A site called vark.com, which Google took over in February 2010, asks questions on a social network scale allowing you can get your question answered quickly and directly, although this does require a login.
So as far as I can see this will go one of two ways. Either people will get behind ask.com because,
- They know the site and the feel comfortable using it.
- You don’t have to login and can find answers to questions quickly
Or they will prefer the idea of interacting with other people and getting a quick direct answer from a site like vark.com or even just twitter.
So, already this asks (no pun intended) the question: Is there going to be a target audience for a site like ask.com as a Q&A site?
If Google are already beating them in the web indexing who is to say that they are not going to beat them again, only it will be worse this time as they will be beating them at their own game!
Either way, I don’t think that the future looks too bright for ask.com. Now, it's simply a question of how long.