Betabeat » ask.com

Booting Up: The Chickens Come Home to Roost for Apple Maps Manager

Kelly Faircloth — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:22:23 -0400

Whoops. (Photo: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps)

Word on the street says Apple has fired the manager who oversaw the development of its ill-fated Maps app. [Bloomberg]

This anthropologist completely submerged herself in the culture she was studying for three years ... meaning she moved to the Bay Area and started chatting up hackers. [Wired]

Google has released an icy slew of Street View updates, including photos of Svalbard, Norway--which is about 400 miles north of continental Europe. [TNW]

The most commonly asked politics question on Ask.com in 2012: "Who will win the Presidential race?" Guys, it's a search engine, not a crystal ball. For fortune-telling, you need Nate Silver. [VentureBeat]

Nokia is suing to block the sale of many RIM products until they can straighten out royalties, not that it'll save either company from the scrapheap of corporate history. [ComputerWorld]

What Were We Asking? The Top Questions of 2011 According to Ask.com

Adrianne Jeffries — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 06:00:37 -0400

Ask.com, the Oakland-based, IAC-owned, Jeeves-powered search engine-turned Q&A service, just released the most pressing questions of 2011. We won't make you squirm: “Was Kim Kardashian’s wedding fake?” was the hottest question asked on Ask.com in 2011.

Ask.com, which also syndicates search and advertising solutions to a network of affiliate partners, says it has 60 million users. For a closer peek into the id of the internet-using population, the top questions of the year are below:

Top celebrity search terms and questions include:

1. Kim Kardashian: Was Kim Kardashian’s wedding fake?

2. Justin Bieber: Is Justin Bieber going to be a dad?

3. Lady Gaga: Are Lady Gaga’s face implants real?

4. Beyonce: Did Beyonce fake a baby bump?

5. Kate Middleton: Who made Kate Middleton’s wedding dress?

6. Ashton Kutcher: Did Ashton cheat?

7. Michael Jackson: Was Michael Jackson murdered?

8. Selena Gomez: Is Selena Gomez pregnant?

9. Lindsay Lohan: Is Lindsay Lohan going to jail?

10. Charlie Sheen: What happened to Charlie Sheen’s teeth?

Top news search terms and questions include:

1. Earthquake in Japan: How big was the earthquake in Japan?

2. Hurricane Irene: What caused Hurricane Irene?

3. Steve Jobs: How much was Steve Jobs worth?

4. Royal Wedding: What did William whisper to Kate on the balcony?

5. Occupy Wall Street: Who started Occupy Wall Street?

6. iPhone: When will Apple release the iPhone 5?

7. Osama Bin Laden: Who killed Bin Laden?

8. Casey Anthony: Where is Casey Anthony hiding?

9. 10^th Anniversary of September 11: What is happening on the 10^th anniversary of 9/11?

10. Amy Winehouse: How did Amy Winehouse die?

Top political searches and questions include:

1. Barack Obama: Will Obama get re-elected?

2. Mitt Romney: What is Mitt Romney’s religion?

3. Sarah Palin: Is Sarah Palin running for president?

4. Michele Bachmann: Is Michele Bachmann crazy?

5. Anthony Weiner: Where can I find Anthony Weiner’s Twitter pics?

6. Arnold Schwarzenegger: Who was Arnold’s mistress?

7. Gay Marriage: Which states allow gay marriage?

8. Withdrawl from Iraq: When will the troops come home?

9. Iowa Caucus: When is the Iowa caucus?

10. Muammar Ghadafi: Who will lead Libya after Ghadafi?

Go to http://www.facebook.com/AskDotCom to get a more extensive list of top searches and enter for a chance to win the Amazon Kindle Fire.

Quora’s Fire Shines a Little Light On New York’s Q&A Sites

Adrianne Jeffries — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:15:00 -0400

The Q&A site Quora has been getting a lot of attention lately thanks to a review by a high profile tech blogger, and recently hit the half-million user mark.

The increased attention on Quora reminds us of two New York companies: one old, one new.

Ask.com, formerly Ask Jeeves, recently pivoted to a Q&A strategy after losing the search wars. Jeeves was fired in 2006 (although you can actually dress him up on uk.ask.com) and Ask.com scrambled around for a while trying to find its niche.

Tadpole startup Kommons launched in September as an add-on to Twitter that "amplifies your questions." The idea is that you can ask @KanyeWest anything you want on Twitter, but he's probably going to ignore you. Kommons lets users back a question directed at a specific person.

For example, someone might ask "Hey @KanyeWest, what kind of toothbrush do you have?" And then hundreds or thousands of people would follow the question and Kanye would realize that his fans really care about what kind of toothbrush he uses, and upload a picture of it to Twitter.

The questions are usually more confrontational than that, though. Founder Cody Brown, who also founded the news site NYU Local, keeps fielding the same question: How is Kommons different from Quora?

"Kommons is different than Quora, it's not either/or," he wrote on Twitter. "Directed questions versus recreational questions."

"My answer from 3 months ago," he tweeted later, linking back to his answer on Kommons the first time he was asked that question.

"We're different than Quora," he told @jcstearns. "I wrote about this a few months ago."

Being constantly compared to another company must be annoying. But Quora is a well-resourced Silicon Valley startup started by former Facebook employees and valued at upwards of $80 million. Brown should be flattered.