Competition between Google and ASK

Type a typical search into Ask.com - for instance "Global warming." On top of the results page is a link to a Wikipedia entry on the subject - along with a tiny chart showing rising global temperatures. Immediately below are links to two news stories on global warming.

Only then do you see ads - and just three. Below them, Ask lists the EPA's Web site, and next to that entry a little icon of binoculars. If you move your cursor over it, a miniature version of the EPA page pops up. Most of the other links on the results page also offer binocular screens. At the bottom of the page are five more ads.
On the right side of the screen, where a Google (Research) search on the same topic lists eight ads, Ask shows none at all but instead provides tools for more results. First are ten links it calls "Narrow Your Search." They include "Causes of Global Warming" and "Effects of Global Warming." Below that is a set of five more links called "Expand Your Search," including ones for "Greenhouse Effect," and "Ozone Layer."



Unlike Google, Ask gives you content before ads, includes previews, and offers related links, including those like "Ozone Layer" that you might not have thought of. Of the three other major search sites - Google, MSN, and Yahoo (Research) - only Yahoo comes close to delivering value comparable to Ask.com, but even then with a much less well-designed screen.

There's a lot more to the Ask.com story, like the irony that even as it comes up Google's tailpipe, its ads are provided by that much-larger competitor, in a deal that extends through the end of next year. Ask.com also just launched an innovative search system for blogs, based on technology it got when it acquired Bloglines last year. Its map and image search products, too, offer distinct advantages over the competition.
Here are my conclusions: Ask.com will increase its 6 percent share in the search market, and quickly. IAC/InterActive, whose stock has only suffered while Ask.com has been transforming itself, will likely see that trend reverse as this superb business surges.

And finally - while I won't foreswear Google (or count it out), I will start using Ask.com a lot.
You can read the whole story here. The information is taking from www.cnn.com web site