I stopped by Ask.com today, to check out some results and was suprised with a new look and feel to the engine. I stopped by blog.ask.com the official ask.com blog and saw they launched Ask3D today. A new approach to search.
First lets take a quick look at the announcement from Ask.com
Today, our search experience is taking a consequential leap forward in making all that information accessible in a coherent way, with the launch of Ask3D, a completely re-engineered version of Ask.com. No, you don’t need red and blue glasses to see it. 3D stands for the three dimensions of searching - query expression, investigating results, and digging deeply into content. You used to have to visit three different pages or websites to see and search through each dimension. With Ask3D, you can now get everything you need on one pageā¦in many cases above the fold.
So what does this really mean to the rest of us? Well, at a minimum, it gives us something to play with for the next few days.
Out of the gate, the new design is fairly unique. You have the ability to skin the main page to any of ten different skins or the original default skin. While it’s a “cute feature”, it isn’t something that really changes the functionality of the the actual search. An interesting coat of paint but more of a whoopie doo than a wow.
Now, down to the main search, there are 8 “sections” or areas you can search. They include Web, Images, City, News, Blog, Video, Maps & Directions and Shopping. Individually, these are solid areas that allow you to find pretty much anything you are looking for. However the real fun is in the combined interface of the search results.
So for our example, I used the term golf. Kept it pretty simple and got some very interesting results. The results page brought in a mix of traditional results, recent news, images, local businesses, events and options to narrow and clarify the search. Built on an iFrame structure, this new results page is very interesting and a lot of information is presented immediately.
Overall, I think the new results page is interesting, but only time will tell how much it might catch on. Obviously, this is the direction the major search engines are heading, only time will tell how well this will do.