The search site launches service designed specifically for cell phones and handheld devices.
Ask.com has rolled out a new service for searching the Web from mobile phones and handheld devices known as Ask Mobile. Ask unveiled the new product at DigitalLife, a consumer event held in New York City.
Ask Mobile’s interface and search tool are designed to minimize keystrokes, increase navigability on small displays and accelerate page loads to speed searches on the go.
Ask Mobile’s search categories include Web Search, Directions, Images, Business Listings, Maps, Weather, Bloglines, Area Codes, Currency Conversion, Horoscope and Time Zones. Additional services, such as sport scores and movie times, will follow the initial rollout.
It is a typical claim for mobile search providers. But search engines do not typically remove search boxes in an effort to support it.
The service uses technology called Skweezer that squeezes Web pages so they appear in a format that is easier to view on small displays and increases download speed. Ask Mobile Search also lets people automatically dial numbers from listings, select driving or walking directions, and send maps and directions to mobile phones.
The design aims to save keystrokes for searches. For example, looking for the weather in the 94114 zip code requires 50 percent fewer keystrokes on Ask Mobile compared to mobile products offered by other major search engines, the company said.
"It is important for Ask.com to do this because most of their competitors, Google, Yahoo, and AOL offer a mobile search engine, as well as the carriers offering private-label search," said Julie Ask, senior analyst at JupiterResearch. "Although not many people use mobile search today, it is a good time to have and experiment with this type of application while the market is young and people’s expectations are low."
In a statement, vice president of product management Doug Leeds said eliminating the one-size-fits-all search box from the mobile search home page brought users to the results they needed faster and more efficiently.
Mobile phones offer several choices in search, such as SMS from companies like Google Inc. or 4INFO. About 45 percent of wireless U.S. subscribers use SMS search, compared with 10 percent using their phones for browsing.
Ask.com, a wholly-owned business of IAC/InterActiveCorp, powers the site with its proprietary ExpertRank algorithmic search technology to provide users with relevant search results. It is supposed to bring "authoritative sites" to the top of search results rather than simply the most linked-to sites.
Ask Mobile Search also features "Instinctive Search Tools" that work much like Google’s one-box search results. For example, searching under directions for "94114 & 94607" brings up List or Turn-by-Turn options, Satellite or Aerial views and Send to Phone.
Location-based application also will emerge, providing people tools that combine Web search with global positioning systems.
The major engines will end up seeing more specific uses for search, for example, I can envision a day when you are walking down the street using your mobile, and you say “Italian restaurant Boston,” and the search tool would return a list of restaurants in the area, said Philippe Winthrop, director of wireless and mobility research at the Aberdeen Group. "Because you have a GPS chip in your mobile phone, it will give you the distance and directions to the restaurant."
Mobile search is Ask’s latest effort to take market share from search leaders Google and Yahoo. The service will be ad-free.
The major search engines have been moving fast into the mobile space. And others are already offering advertising on the mobile services, anticipating that people using mobile phones to search the Web will likely make a transaction by visiting a merchant.
Google dominated the search market again in September with a 50.2 percent share of all searches, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Yahoo came in second with 24 percent, and Ask.com finished fifth with 2.3 percent.
Both Google and Yahoo already have mobile search platforms. And each has already begun testing sponsored results to monetize the products. Lately, Microsoft said it plans to place ads on MSN’s Windows Live Search for Mobile service that will let people click on an ad to place a call to the advertiser.
Recently, Yahoo also launched a beta version of sponsored search results on mobile phones in the United States and United Kingdom. In July, Google updated its services for mobile users.
But, as Ask’s television commercials attest, the company matched Google’s year-over-year growth at 30 percent.