5 Questions with Ask Italy's Antonio Gulli

"Pisa?" I've had friends react, "Why do you guys have an office in Pisa?" As easy as it would be to joke about frequent "business" trips to Tuscany, I was curious myself. So I corralled the head of the Pisa office, our Director of Advanced Search Projects Antonio Gulli, for an e-mail interview. He sent back answers liberally sprinkled with links from Ask products, including News and Image Search, to which the Pisa folks are major contributors.

By the way, if you're an engineer and want to go to work in a 14th century Tuscan palace, start learning Italian now.

1. So, Antonio. What are the advantages of Ask having an office in Pisa?

Pisa has one of the most prestigious Engineering and Computer Science Universities in Europe. Therefore, Ask has access to much talent for both our local and remote offices. In addition, Pisa is located in Tuscany , a region loved by many people for the food , the wine , and the quality of life. Pisa is connected with New York JFK by a 7-hour direct flight and the airport is 20 minutes walking distance from the office.

2. Italy's a center for computer engineering? How'd that come about?

Well, for the record, the first University of Pisa was founded back in 1343! Long time ago. But the history of Pisa as center for computer engineering goes back to 1954. That's when Pisa University, on the advice of the Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi , decided to design and construct a computer intended entirely for scientific use--the first in Italy. The University of Pisa's Computer Science course curriculum back in the 1960s was Italy's first.

Pisa also hosted one of the first Internet connections in Italy--and one of the first 50 WWW servers in the world--back in 1986. Nowadays, Pisa has three different universities: Pisa University System , Scuola Normale Superiore and the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies .

3. Does the Pisa office have a particular role at Ask.com?

Our office was a key contributor for Ask Image Search, Ask AP Image Search , and Ask Blog search . Currently, we're collaborating with the other offices on upcoming Ask Search products.

4. Are your employees only from Italy?

No, we also have staff from other European countries like France, Lithuania and Hungary.

5. Where do you find your engineers? (Don't give away any trade secrets ;-)

We've hired many talented people from University. Being from a company that people know makes recruitment much easier ;-) Of course, another good reason why they come and work for Ask.com Pisa is our location. Here's some new photos:

Our office is the former Palace Gambacorti, on Corso Italia (literally "Italy Avenue"). Built in the 14th century, it was the home of the Gambacortis, Pisa's most powerful family. Henry VII stayed in the palace, as did Charles IV of Luxembourg. The new office is GORGEOUS even for Italian standards.

He ain't kidding. Check out these photos:

Told you.

Ken Grobe

Product Content Manager

Ask.com

- Ask.com Blog

Ask.com Mobile: Voice-Activated Directions Show You the Way

We talk a lot around here about the Mobile Web and making mobile search faster, better. Admittedly, it's easy to get excited about the different features and capabilities of all the new pimped out devices, but at the core every mobile phone does one thing inherently well: transmit the human voice.

I am excited about our first step in integrating voice with Ask.com Mobile. Today, we've added a new option to our Directions service called Click to Speak. The feature lets Ask.com Mobile users enter addresses by speaking instead of keying them in. With just a click, users can activate a voice activated directions service and within seconds receive a text message with a link to directions.

The new capability incorporates technology from our East Bay neighbors, Dial Directions.

Here's how the new feature works:

1) Use your web-enabled mobile device to go to Ask.com (either http://www.ask.com or http://m.ask.com).

2) Click the "Directions" link on the home page and click the "SPEAK your address" option.

3) Hit the continue button to start the call and follow the voice prompts to speak your location and destination. You can use specific addresses or intersections.

4) Almost instantly you will receive a text message with a link to your directions. You can view them in either a traditional list mode or turn-by-turn step format complete with visual cues.  You can also toggle between "driving" and "walking" routes.

It's that easy. No more mis-typing an address while on your way to that important business meeting! No more typing with your thumbs while trying to find your friend's birthday party!

Intrigued? Check out the video:

Ask Mobile with Dial Directions

Or better yet, try it out yourself.

Brendan Hallett
Product Manager
Ask.com Mobile

- Ask.com Blog

Give Me Some Skin: Ask Gets More Personal

So. You're reading the Ask.com blog, which means you've been to Ask.com, which probably means you've seen our Skins feature.

Introduced when we launched Ask3D last year, Skins allows you to change the design of the Ask.com homepage. It was a small part of the whole Ask3D package, but it's quickly become popular on a millions-of-people level, all skinning to their hearts' content.

And many skins users requested upgrades--the most-requested one being the ability to allow them to upload their own images.

Today, we're happy to announce just that upgrade.

All you have to do is use the new upload feature on Skins.

Let's say you have a really sweet photo, like this one we took of the team that worked on the Skins project, and you want to add it to the Ask homepage.

Click the Skins bubble on the Ask homepage:

Click the "Upload Your Own" button to reveal the upload dialog.

You can select an image from your computer or enter an image URL. I have this image on my computer, so I used the browse button to find it. Don't forget to the check the box that Legal team made us add; then click the "I Agree" button.

Now you can decide on a name for your skin, which color text to use, and where you would like the skin aligned on the homepage.

Here are some examples of different anchor points:

Once you're done, click the "Next" button to confirm your new skin.

Does everything look OK to you? If not, you can always go back and make some changes. I like mine the way it is, so I'm going to click the "Use This Skin Now" button and just like magic: the Ask homepage is my own!

Browsing Skins

Or maybe you're the kind of person who appreciates variety. We've also added more images to our library and introduced the ability to easily browse them--including the skins you've uploaded yourself. Just go to http://skins.ask.com  or click the "See All Skins" button in the Skins bubble on the homepage.

It's so easy to use, what more is there to say?

Enjoy!

Erik Collier
Director of Product Management
Ask.com

- Ask.com Blog

Ask.com to Host Opening Event of the Israel Web Tour in Silicon Valley

Having grown up in Israel, I've always been connected to the country's tech community. That's one of the reasons I started writing about Israeli start ups since 2005 on my blog, VC Café.  Now, I am pleased to announce that Ask.com has been selected to host the opening meeting of next week's Israel Web Tour.

The Web Tour brings 15 selected Israel-based technology start ups to the Silicon Valley for a week-long series of presentations and meetings with some of the Silicon Valley's top web companies and VCs. Organized by the California Israel Chamber of Commerce (CICC), this is the event's second installment.

The Web Tour kicks off at our Campbell office with a working lunch discussion focusing on Search Innovation. Ask.com's SVP of Product Management, Doug Leeds, will showcase Ask's products and technology, covering trends in the fast-moving Search space. In addition, VP of Corporate Development, Manoj Verma will discuss how startups can work with Ask.com and IAC.

Congratulations to the 15 companies chosen to participate in this year's Web Tour:

• 5min.com
• 8hands
• AllofMe
• blogTV.com
• ClickTale
• Erayo
• Journeys
• NuConomy
• PageOnce
• PicScout
• PLYmedia.com
• Qoof
• Semingo
• Sportingo
• Velingo

Until next time, Shalom!

Eze Vidra

Product Manager

- Ask.com Blog

Better Binoculars

Ever been caught in a loop of back-and-forth clicking between the search result list and the linked result pages looking for that perfect site? That's where our Binoculars come in handy; they give you a peek at those sites before you open them. Just roll your mouse over the icon and - there it is. Saved clicks, saved time, everybody's happy.

Initially launched in 2004 , Binoculars help people find what they are looking for faster. As part of our Ask3D redesign , in June 2007 we improved them - added bigger previews, increased coverage and dramatically shortened update cycles. We also added information about the site you're previewing, giving you site download time, whether or not a site is Flash-based, and even how many pop-ups the site delivers.

Many of you told us that you'd like to know even more about the search results. Knowing how popular a site is, for example, can give an idea of its influence and trustworthiness or it may be helpful in various types of research. Turns out Binoculars are the perfect tool for this kind of information. It keeps the result page uncluttered for the casual searcher, yet provides deeper insight for those who need it.

So we arranged a feed from Compete.com to enhance our Binoculars system. Compete is doing a great job pulling together data from various sources to compile ongoing web statistics for a huge number of websites. For the inquiring minds among you, this data is now available directly on our search results. Let's take a closer look.

Since it's winter and I love skiing, I searched for my favorite ski resort . When you roll over the Binocular icon of the top result, you will at first see the familiar preview:

At the lower portion of the preview, you can see the combined size ofall elements on the page and how long it will take to download it on astill-common 56K modem connection. It will also show you whether thesite requires the Flash plugin or whether it serves pop-ups:

So far nothing new, but look at the top and you'll now notice tabs. Let's click on Statistics:

At one glance you can see the visitor trend for the site. Looks likeskiing is indeed more popular in the winter, who would've thought? Onthe bottom, you get the most recent estimated visitors count innumbers, here about 44,000, and the site's rank. In this example,Kirkwood.com was the 39,768th most-visited site on the web in Jan '08according to Compete. If you want to know even more, such as yearlytrends or pageviews per visit, click on "View detailed report" and wewill take you to the full profile on Compete.com

BTW, the Binoculars bubble scales with the size of your browserwindow. If the graph or preview is too small, try enlarging yourbrowser. If you can't, maybe it's time for that new screen?

Sven Rossbach

Product Mananger

Ask.com

- Ask.com Blog

Ask.com Makes More Moves on Privacy

Several weeks ago, a group of privacy advocates contacted a major company in the search marketplace, requesting some key changes to its website to make weblinks to its privacy policy more accessible and conspicuous. This included placing a “Privacy” link directly on the homepage that would, in one click, serve up the company’s privacy policy to the user

In their June 3rd letter requesting the change, the privacy groups stated that such a move represents “…a commitment by a commercial website to inform users about the company’s privacy practices.”

Ask.com agrees.

At Ask, we take our commitment to user privacy and data protection very seriously. We’ve demonstrated this not just through words, but through deeds and actions. We were the first major search company to announce that we would be placing privacy tools directly in the hands of our users, as we said we would do in July 2007. Then, we did it: we launched AskEraser in December 2007. Ask remains the only major search company to develop and deploy a privacy protection tool that that empowers web users to make decisions as to data retention by Ask. The AskEraser tool is right there on our homepage, a one-step mechanism to deleting a users’ search data from Ask.com servers.

Now, we’re going several steps further.

As of today, Ask.com has added a direct link to our privacy policy via a “Privacy” link prominently placed right on our homepage. It is only one of four non-search related weblinks on our homepage. We’ve also made sure that the “Privacy” link appears on the landing pages across most of Ask’s verticals as well, which cover almost all of Ask’s search traffic.

In addition to this important and timely step, Ask has also added a conspicuous link to our privacy policy right on our Ask “About” page, which is one click off our homepage.

At the same time, we realized we can – and should – do more to inform our users about the importance of privacy on Ask, and in general on the web. And we have. We are developing and finalizing two separate Ask “Smart Answer” search results pages, so when a user goes to Ask.com and types in “Ask Privacy” or “Privacy” in the search box, they will get served up a specially designed, robust, and comprehensive results page that is a one-stop shop of answers on both Ask’s privacy policies and actions (including AskEraser), as well as on privacy in general.

No one required that we take any of these steps. We took a look at our webpages, and realized we could make some key improvements when it came to privacy links on our service. It’s simply the right thing to do for the information and awareness of our users.

We strongly encourage others in the search marketplace and online industry to do the same.

Warmest Regards,

The Ask.com Team

- Ask.com Blog

Ask.com is Grillin' and Chillin' for the 4th of July

For some the 4th of July is all about fireworks and going to the beach. Grilling fans know better. It’s all about grillin' and chillin'. So, Ask.com decided to get to the “meat” of the matter and find out who came out on top this year -- the hamburger or hot dog?

According to Ask.com’s online searches, the answer is clear: hamburgers outweigh hot dogs in popularity by 33%!

Not to forget about something sweet to finish off the BBQ, we wanted to test the adage that there’s “nothing more American than apple pie,” and a look at our recent recipe searches proves that it’s absolutely true. Apple most certainly reins supreme accounting for 42% of all recent pie searches. Other fresh seasonal favorites that round out the top three are Key Lime and Strawberry Rhubarb, perfect for summer celebrations and get togethers.

Check out our complete list of the most popular pies on Ask.com:

Ask.com's Top 10 Pie Searches
1.  Apple
2.  Key Lime
3.  Strawberry Rhubarb
4.  Pecan
5.  Peach
6.  Blueberry
7.  Pumpkin
8.  Lemon Meringue
9.  Coconut Cream
10. Banana Cream

- Ask.com Blog

Unveiling the Most Popular Destination Wedding Locations

While June is historically known as the most popular month forweddings, the entire three month span of June, July and August iscommonly referred to as “wedding season.” 178 million adults areonline, many of them brides-to-be wanting to step outside thetraditional nuptials mold, and are searching for the most beautifuldestination wedding venues.

A destination wedding can be exciting, adventurous and the idealchoice for many modern brides and whether it’s somewhere tropical,tourist-y or totally off the beaten path, destination weddings are sureto not disappoint.

So where are these bride hopefuls looking to hold their destinationdream day? Digging into the Ask.com search banks, we lifted the veil touncover the top 10:

Ask.com’s Top 10 Most Searched Destination Wedding Locations:
1.  Costa Rica
2.  Maui, Hawaii
3.  Belize
4.  Aruba
5.  Virgin Islands
6.  Nassau, Bahamas
7.  Punta Cana
8.  Cabo San Lucas
9.  Tuscany
10. Florida Keys

- Ask.com Blog

Ask.com Ranks George Clooney as Users Favorite Batman

With the highly-anticipated July 18th release of The Dark Knight on the horizon, record reports of ticket pre-sales and of course the Oscar buzz around the late Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker, Ask.com retired to our own bat cave (aka our search banks) to reveal searching habits around this soon-to-be box office hit. Just as we suspected, users are conducting searches on everything from actors who have played Batman to directors to Heath Ledger himself...

Four mega-stars have played the role of Gotham City’s "Caped Crusader" over the years, and according to our search banks, George Clooney from Batman and Robin reins Bruce Wayne supreme with over 67% of searches followed by Christian Bale (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), Val Kilmer (Batman Forever) and finally, Michael Keaton (Batman, Batman Returns).

When it comes to villains, the clear winner is The Joker - - most likely attributed to Heath Ledger, who is also one of the top recent searches on Ask.com.

As far as directors go, data from Ask.com shows that Tim Burton is the favorite garnering 98% of searches, followed by Christopher Nolan, director of The Dark Knight and finally Joel Schumacher.

In terms of popularity by movie title, The Dark Knight had almost three times the number of searches than runner-up Batman. Here is the full ranked list:

1. The Dark Knight

2. Batman

3. Batman Begins

4. Batman and Robin

5. Batman Forever

6. Batman Returns

- Ask.com Blog

Ask TV – a great search engine strategy unveiled at SES-San Jose!

Well, folks, it’s a wrap for SES San Jose this year. If you weren’t able to catch up with us this year at the event, there’s always next time!

Ask.com was on a few exciting panels this year, and it was great to catch up with all of our partners and other friends (hi Lisa!) and learn what new and cool innovations they are working on.

I had a spot on the Semantic Search panel Monday morning with Yahoo!, hakia, Powerset and Boo Rah and there was a lot of buzz in the air about what the future of Semantic Search will be, and how consumers will benefit from a semantic search experience on the web.

I spoke about Ask.com’s newest application of semantic search technology, searchable TV listings (which is still a work in progress, by the way). In case you missed it, I’d thought I’d take some time to fill you in.

Navigating TV listings in search of things like Olympic coverage can be a frustrating task. Not any more. With Ask.com it is now a real part of search. Straight from the Ask searchbox.

Our Ask TV listings uses our patent-pending technology DADS (Direct Answers from Databases) to answer queries and questions from structured data feeds and databases. DADS provides highly accurate answers to queries which are relevant to a given topic. Instead of using traditional keyword search algorithms, our technology can deliver much deeper, more precise search results based on understanding of a query meaning rather than syntactical text matching.

Ask TV answers queries ranging from "when is sports on tv this weekend" or "horror movies tonight" to "lindsay lohan on tv". Covering nearly 10,000 distinct stations and over 100,000 shows, our information is updated daily -- and it can be personalized and customized to any location and cable provider in the USA.

With deep content indexing, Ask TV can find content based on time within the next two weeks -- like today, this weekend, tomorrow night as well as name of actors, movies and sport events as well as types of programs such as comedies or horror movies.

Kinda cool, huh?

It doesn’t matter how you phrase your questions, because our DADs technology is able to understand what you are looking for (most of the time) no matter how you phrase your query. Check out these examples:

Is CSI on TV this Wednesday afternoon?

This Wednesday afternoon is CSI on TV?

In the afternoon this Wednesday is CSI on TV?

Ask TV isn’t just the ‘couch potato’s’ dream come true. It's Ask answering our users’ needs as they make key daily decisions…like, “How can I entertain the kids while I make dinner?" Gee, when is “Zach and Cody” on?  Hmm, let me check my Ask TV listings!  :)

Ask TV listings technology is a glimpse into what the future holds for Semantic search, and here at Ask, we’re always innovating and pioneering new technology on behalf of our customers. AskTV and DADs is just another example that carries on that tradition.

Erik Collier
VP, Product Management

P.S. – Oh, here’s something I didn’t get to say at SES: the good news is, watch this space here for news of many more structured data verticals to come live on Ask.com…it’s just gonna get better!

- Ask.com Blog