Leave it to Barry Diller (is it me or does he look like the grandfather on Everybody Loves Raymond?) to finally create a new way to search online and possibly compete with the almighty Google.  Ask.com’s new search engine has come up with what they call their “Ask 3D” engine - named for what they call the three dimensions of search: Expression, Results and Content.

Believe it or not, search is still one of the most underdeveloped areas in online and represents an enormous opportunity for improvement.  It’s true that Google helped to improve search engine results when Sergey and Larry cried “there must be a better way!” back in 1998, but even their new search engine was limited in that they focused on what was the current paradigm of online searching.  They made the results a little more relevant and certainly sped up the process of delivering the results.  But they did very little to help in understanding the direction of someone’s search.

Here’s an example of how Ask.com is breaking out of the norm of search engine results and delivering something different and IMO better than what we get today.  If someone searches for “golf” on Google they get the following type of results:

• Link to golf.com
• Link to PGA.com
• Link to PGATour.com
• Link to Wikipedia’s definition of golf
• Link to GolfChannel.com

Likely I didn’t search “golf” to find a link to one of those sites.  I was most likely trying to answer a question, such as “Who won the LPGA championship this past weekend” or “What are some funny golf jokes I can tell on the course this weekend” or “What are some golf courses near my house that I can try” or “How can I feel with one swing that I’m ready to go head-to-head with Tiger and with the next swing feel like I might be better off trying to play with my left hand because it can’t get any worse”.  If we can agree that people aren’t searching for links, but rather are searching to answer a question, then we can start to see the difference in what Ask.com is now producing.  Here is a sample of what you get from Ask.com when you search for “golf“:

• A “Narrow Your Search” column on the left with suggestions such as:
• Golf Tips
• Golf Courses
• Golf Jokes
• In the middle search area, the first result is “Latest Golf Headlines”, underneath which is essentially the same list of results to sites that Google listed
• On the right hand side you have Images, Shopping options and a definition for golf straight from Wikipedia

Overall this is a MUCH better experience than what you get from Google.  Did it take an extra 5 nanoseconds to come up? Sure, probably did.  Did I notice that?  No, though I’m only on my second cup of coffee so give me a few more hours and who knows.  But what Ask.com is attempting to do is answer my question, which is a huge shift in what the other engines do.

I guess you could say that Ask.com is finally living up to its name.  And since Google (which is actually googol) means the number one followed by 100 zeros, I guess they’re living up to their name too.