Thursday, March 2nd, 2006
Ask Wipes Jeeves Away With Ajax
Category: Ajax
From WebProNews.com, there’s a column spotlighting the recent move that Ask.com has made away from the “Jeeves” image and more towards a slick, Ajax-enchanced search engine ready for the future.
The dominant red swath across the middle of the Ask.com homepage has been shifted to the top of the page and reduced to a simple narrow bar, widened and rounded at the left. Jeeves is gone, of course, a decision made by SES New York 2006 keynote speaker and IAC CEO Barry Diller several months ago.
In Jeeves’ place, Ask.com has followed the other major search engines in providing a very minimal interface for users to begin a search with a query. Google knew for a long time the whole point of the search box was to get users to the results, where the paid search ads and sponsored links waited to draw clicks and revenue.
As they note, the Ajax comes into play with the links along the right-hand side of the page – “Images”, “News”, “Weather”, and “Shopping” to name a few. There’s also a “Desktop Search” option that interfaces with software installed to make your searching experience seamless. You can also customize this listing to the items and the order you’d like.
AskAlexia.com, an ajax-based search engine, still in its BETA, with only web, image, video searches available. A combination of simple UI+speed+ajax