New York — Barely last year, Ask.com, one of the most popular and well-known search engines (next to Google, of course) on the internet, conceded its search operations to its competitors and refocused on building out its Q&A platform, and now they are looking to establish a foothold, has just introduced a new Android app offering a mobile Q&A service to users. The launch follows that of its iPhone app, which recently surpassed a million downloads.
Ask.com’s timely move seems to have paid off somewhat, as the company has seen over 1 million downloads of its iPhone app. Now, they are on the right track with the announcement of their flagship mobile application for the Google Android Platform, the only app to integrate Q&A-focused web search with prompt answers from real people in a single, on-the-go experience.
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“We have placed a big bet on mobile as part of our growth strategy, and it is paying off with four times the answer rate as our site users,” said Jason Rupp, senior director of product management at Ask.com. “Over the last three quarters there was triple digit growth in traffic from smartphones to the Ask.com mobile site, and 60 percent of that was Android. To win in mobile, you must win on Android.”
Mobile, specifically, has culminated into a significant growth area for the Q&A platform, with a 100 percent increase in visits to Ask.com from smart phones over the last year (mobile is 10 percent of total usage). The availability of Ask.com on Android follows the launch of its popular Q&A app for iPhone, which recently passed one million downloads and is one of the top reference apps in the iPhone store.
According to Ask.com, the newly revealed Android app is now available in the Android Marketplace and Amazon AppStore for Android. It is enriched with all of the features of its iPhone application including voice to text features, the ability to get web results as well as top-voted published answers from other Ask.com users. You can also specifically send a question to a real user, and activate push notifications to alert you to when a new answer has arrived.
Top features of the new Android app include:
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Voice To Text: Simply ask questions, no typing required.
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Web Combined With Real People: Get web results as well as top-voted published answers from other Ask.com users in milliseconds.
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Send A Question To A Real User: Want another opinion? Route the question to a live person in the Ask.com Q&A community, or browse and respond to other users’ questions.
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Set It And Forget It: Push notifications alert you to when a new answer has arrived.
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Personalize Q&A By Interest: New for Android users, the app allows you to filter Q&A by topics that match your profile.
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Follow Feature: Follow users who provide interesting answers, and personalize your Q&A experience with content from these connections.
The app looks to be the perfect solution for people that need quick answers on the go, without scrolling through page after page of search results. One of the Android-specific functionality is the ability to filter Q&A by topics that match your profile. You can also follow users who provide interesting answers, and personalize your Q&A experience with content from these connections.
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Moreover, Ask.com mentions that iPhones currently make up about 55 percent of Ask.com smartphone mobile traffic while Android makes up about 40 percent. Also last week, Ask announced some new partnerships it is using to help bolster its “Smart Answers”.
To download the Ask for Android app, go to www.ask.com/mobile.