In April 2003, Ask Jeeves added "Smart Search" to its engine, which tops search results for definitive queries like "Who is George Washington?"
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Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has so firmly staked out its place as the Internet search- engine leader that it has even earned a place as a verb in the English lexicon.
Paradoxically, because of its popularity, there may be no better time to try something different.
Google's success has forced competitors like Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), MSN Search and Ask Jeeves (Nasdaq: ASKJ) to hustle with releasing new product features, search controls and improved behind-the-scenes programming.
The top result for "weather in New York," for instance, leads to Yahoo's New York City weather page, with current conditions and a five-day outlook.
America Online Search now provides information from partners' content and its own; these "snapshots" in fields like entertainment, sports and shopping link to information from publications within the Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) media universe, including Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated.
Likewise, MSN Search returns links to information from its own specialized databases, like MSN Music, msnbc.com and Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Encarta encyclopedia.
"Having the trusted data, what we know is a right answer, and not asking them to trawl around that's a huge advantage for the user," said Ramez Naam, MSN Search's group program manager.
Ask Jeeves will introduce technology this spring that will further the question-and-answer abilities of its engine.