Home New Ask.com blog search and Bloglines upgrade (but no new UI)

New Ask.com blog search and Bloglines upgrade (but no new UI)

Ask.com is releasing a new blog search feature on
their search engine, as well as integrating search more into their leading web-based RSS
Reader Bloglines. You’ll recall that Ask.com (or
Ask Jeeves as it was known then) acquired Bloglines in February 2005
and ever since then a lot of us have been waiting for Ask.com functionality to be
integrated into Bloglines. Not to mention waiting for a Bloglines UI overhaul… but
more on that later in this post. So finally Ask.com has come out with some new
functionality for Bloglines – and I have to say it’s a noticeable improvement. Mike Arrington also seems impressed.

I’ll start with the new Ask.com features. Admittedly I never use the Ask.com search
engine. I’m one of the many millions who over the years has got hooked on Google’s search
engine – and have no reason to switch. But the latest comScore search engine stats show
Ask.com has 5.9% of the market, which is not insignificant. Still, it’s well behind
Google (42.7%), Yahoo (28.0%) and MSN (13.2%). Also it’s behind AOL (7.6%), so Ask.com is
5th overall. Search
Engine Watch analysis
shows that Ask.com has stayed pretty steady throughout the past
year – neither growing much or losing share.

Next generation blog search?

Interestingly, according to the media material provided to me, Ask.com is pitching the
new blog search features as being “the next generation” of Blog and Feed Search – moreso
than being a value-add to its Web search engine. This suggests it is eyeing the blog
search market that Technorati currently dominates. What isn’t surprising is that Ask.com
is finally leveraging their Bloglines asset. They say they are combining
Ask.com’s “world-class search technology” with “the industry’s most robust
feed and article data” from Bloglines. While Ask.com’s search engine prowess could be
questioned (when comparing it to Google especially), I certainly agree that Bloglines has
a very rich blog data set that probably isn’t matched by any other vendor (except maybe
Yahoo).

Ask.com claims that its blog search will yield superior results, due to that by now
familiar 2.0 term “collective human intelligence”. They state:

“Instead of crawling, Ask Blog & Feed Search harnesses the subscription data of
hundreds of thousands of real people who use Bloglines
, the #1 online feed reader, to
create our search index. In the absence of a mature link structure, people provide the
best way to discover the freshest, highest quality feeds — information that isn’t
exposed to crawlers. In addition, this “collective human intelligence”
provides a natural defense against spam, as people typically do not subscribe to low
quality content.”

(emphasis mine)

So Ask.com really is making the most of its Bloglines asset – and again I must use the
word *finally*! In essence they’re saying that Bloglines users tell the engine
what is the best content. Ask.com is also applying their search algorithm on top of the
Bloglines subscription data. Users can then filter their results.

Main features

As well as the ‘Advanced
Search’ option, there are three sorting tabs – Relevance, Most Recent, Popularity. When I
spoke to the Ask.com team on the phone, I asked what the difference was between Relevance
and Popularity. I was told that Relevance analyzes the link structure, using their search
algorithm – it’s “subject specific popularity”. The Popularity tab on the other hand
analyzes the number of subscribers and links within Bloglines.

The other main features of Ask.com blog search are:

1. BinocularsRoll-over to preview the site without leaving the page.
Uses some neat-o Ajax technology, that previews the last 5 posts of a blog. In my testing
it did load slightly slowly and the pop-up went outside the browser frame at the top (in
Firefox). But those are minor glitches, which will be improved I’m sure.
2. SubscribeSubscribe to feeds using your preferred reader.
Interestingly, Ask.com doesn’t just offer the Bloglines reader – but options to subscribe
using Google Reader, Newsgator, Yahoo, and a generic RSS button (in that order). Also,
and this is a key feature I look for in blog search engines, I can subscribe to search
queries.
3. Post ToShare results by posting them to your favorite sites. The
options are Bloglines (post-it feature), digg, del.icio.us and newsvine (in that
order).

There are also 3 types of results – Posts, Feeds, News. I asked about how the
News sources are chosen and was informed that it’s an editorial judgement by Ask.com
staff – much like how Google News chooses its sources. This will supposedly provide “more
professional” results. Although I was disappointed to discover that neither Read/WriteWeb
or my ZDNet blog is deemed
“professional” enough to make the cut… yet (hint, hint).

There are a whole lot of other features, but best to check those out by using the new
Ask.com blog search yourself. Just go to the ask.com homepage and click on ‘Blogs and Feeds’ at the bottom of the right-hand menu. My tests revealed some good results – however my own
blog
was conspicuously absent most of the time! A fixable glitch I’m sure 🙂

New Bloglines features – but no new UI

As for Bloglines integration of Ask.com search technology, the only UI addition is a
new ‘Search’ tab at the top of the page. There are some nice filtering options, such as
limiting your searches to your own feed subscriptions. Plus things like citation search
and ‘Top Queries for the Past Hour’. There are also post and feed previews, using Ajax
magic. Also the same filtering options available in Ask.com blog search – Relevance,
Freshness, Popularity, etc.

But… that same old blue and boxy UI. There has been some Ajax fairy dust sprinkled
over it (with the post and feed previews), but when oh when will we see an upgrade to
Blogline’s UI?! I put this question to the friendly Ask.com people who showed me the
demo. They told me that for this upgrade they focused on functionality. The
roadmap for Bloglines development does have both feature and UI upgrades in it,
but a timeframe for this wasn’t revealed to me. I was also told that they “don’t want to
shock our user base” with a UI overhaul, because they have such a large user base and
everybody has different ideas on what a good UI should look like – should it be river of
news, three panes, etc.

OK I do understand the need to be conservative with the Bloglines UI – and in many
ways it pays not to fix ‘what ain’t broke’. It may be an ugly UI, but it’s still fast and
stable. I was told that in terms of user requests, #1 was search (done now) and #2 was
new UI. They’re apparently testing a lot of new UI ideas, but I wasn’t told how long that
will take.

Summary

Overall, this is a great move by Ask.com to integrate the Ask.com technology with the
Bloglines subscription user base. To be honest, well overdue – but I’m glad the blog
search part is here now. It remains to be seen whether it’ll offer enough desirable
functionality to seriously challenge Technorati, which has a lot of unique features and
has become relatively stable over the past 6 months or so. But Ask.com is now in the blog
search game – which is the main thing.

About ReadWrite’s Editorial Process

The ReadWrite Editorial policy involves closely monitoring the tech industry for major developments, new product launches, AI breakthroughs, video game releases and other newsworthy events. Editors assign relevant stories to staff writers or freelance contributors with expertise in each particular topic area. Before publication, articles go through a rigorous round of editing for accuracy, clarity, and to ensure adherence to ReadWrite's style guidelines.

Get the biggest tech headlines of the day delivered to your inbox

    By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. Unsubscribe anytime.

    Tech News

    Explore the latest in tech with our Tech News. We cut through the noise for concise, relevant updates, keeping you informed about the rapidly evolving tech landscape with curated content that separates signal from noise.

    In-Depth Tech Stories

    Explore tech impact in In-Depth Stories. Narrative data journalism offers comprehensive analyses, revealing stories behind data. Understand industry trends for a deeper perspective on tech's intricate relationships with society.

    Expert Reviews

    Empower decisions with Expert Reviews, merging industry expertise and insightful analysis. Delve into tech intricacies, get the best deals, and stay ahead with our trustworthy guide to navigating the ever-changing tech market.