Tech Talk

Has your mind been plagued by a question? Are you desperately looking for a straight answer and not just a bunch of links? All you have to do is ask, or rather go to ask.com.

The search engine, which was once known as Ask Jeeves, is being transformed into a powerful new site that promises to deliver answers to your questions — and not just a bunch of links like Google and Yahoo!

The site stated:

You already know us for answers to your questions, and now we’ve expanded our site with a community of real people – just like you – to help you get even better answers to even more of your questions.

Although the features are currently available to those who request an invitation, soon everyone will be able to utilize the exciting features.

Too anxious to wait for an invitation? Fear not, techies, the site already allows individuals to get answers to their questions — like:

• Where did Jeeves go?
• When did the Titanic sink?
• What causes hiccups?

The change is a logical one for the search engine that trails behind Google, Yahoo!, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing and AOL, according to Nielson.

Now let’s just hope Ask delivers a comprehensive alternative from its mainstream cousins.

As our society comes to expect to know what is happening immediately, it is growing increasingly important for search engines to deliver that information or risk losing its audience.

Shortly after parts of Times Square were evacuated earlier Wednesday over concerns of a suspicious van that turned out to pose no safety risk hours before the country turned its eyes toward the crossroads of the world, a technology writer entered “Times Square” into the query boxes for Google and Bing.  Guess who had the most relevant information, or for that matter, the only pertinent information.

If you guessed Bing, you are correct! 

According to TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld, Google returned old news results about New Year’s Eve preparations whereas Bing offered timely articles from ABCNews and CNN about the still developing story.

While Google had the relevant information on its site, it was buried and not easy to find.  Bing successfully delivered the most relevant news to a person yearning for it.  While Google still controls a substantially greater market-share, the search engine giant should not forget about its core business — Internet searches.

Real-time searching will play an increasingly prominent role in our society as more people sign on to social networking, and Google needs to recognize that.

If Google drops the ball too often, people may begin to become accustomed to turning to Bing for timely and relevant news queries — and then day-to-day searches, just as folks turned to Google over Yahoo not so long ago.