The New Ask 3D: Visually Richer

Ask relaunched tonight with a bold new UI and multimedia content.

I have an extensive (though still incomplete) discussion at Search Engine Land. But what about local? Much of it is handled through referrals and hand-offs to Ask City. But the site does a nice job (through IP targeting) with locally ambiguous queries like “attorney“or “plumber.” There’s also a nice local events integration that appears in the third column when triggered by the right query (see, e.g., “blues“)

Beyond all the features and functionality, the fact that it’s visually appealing makes it more fun to use. Play with the skins, you’ll see what I mean. (It’s 3 a.m. and that’s all I can muster.)

To save the day, here are more thoughtful remarks from John Battelle and Gary Price (of Ask). Battelle spends a good deal of time comparing Ask to Apple. While the comparison is justified in lots of ways, the way that it has yet to be justified is in Ask’s “algorithm” marketing campaign.

As Microsoft’s Don Dodge previously argued (and TechCrunch reminds me) every market share point is worth a billion dollars or more. I think the site is very innovative and may be able to gain some momentum and new usage. At a minimum, it will grab more usage frequency from “casual” Ask users. The interesting thing to see will be whether there’s any new usage.

Don’t underestimate the power and lure of aesthetics.