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Search On The Go With New Ask Mobile Search

Posted on: Thursday, 12 October 2006, 09:00 CDT

NEW YORK, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ask.com(R), a wholly-owned business of IAC/InterActiveCorp and the fastest growing search engine on the Web, today introduced Ask Mobile (http://mobile.ask.com/ ), a new service for searching the Web from mobile devices. Designed to minimize keystrokes, increase navigability on small displays and accelerate page loads, Ask Mobile offers a special interface and search tools to help searchers find what they are looking for faster. The announcement was made at DigitalLife, a consumer event in New York City dedicated to educating consumers on what the digital lifestyle means in every aspect of life -- at work, home and play.

"Mobile is an increasingly important access point for searchers," said Jim Lanzone, CEO of Ask.com. "The new Ask Mobile makes it easy for users of Web-enabled cell phones, PDAs and other mobile devices to take advantage of the world-class relevance and industry-touted search tools offered by Ask.com."

Key Features Special Interface for Mobile Users

Ask Mobile offers links to key search categories directly from the home page, making it easier to navigate to relevant results. The design saves significant keystrokes for many searches; for example, looking for the weather in the 94114 zip code requires 50 percent fewer keystrokes on Ask Mobile compared to mobile products offered by other major search engines. Fewer keystrokes is an extremely important concept when considering the difficulty of typing on mobile devices and the absence of full-sized keyboards.

"Ask Mobile is designed specifically for search on mobile devices, instead of shoehorning a PC interface into a mobile product," said Doug Leeds, vice president of product management for Ask.com. "Extensive testing showed that, by eliminating the search box from the home page and instead providing links to key search services, users were more successful in getting to what they were looking for, significantly increasing their satisfaction."

Ask Mobile utilizes Skweezer technology that "skweezes" Web pages to present content in a format that is easier to view and navigate on small displays and increases download speed. With the Skweezer technology, Ask Mobile allows more access to Web content by allowing pages to load that would otherwise be too memory-intensive for most mobile devices.

Search Services

Powered by Ask.com's proprietary ExpertRank algorithmic search technology, Ask Mobile provides users with highly-relevant search results, bringing authoritative sites within their topic community to the top of the results page, rather than simply ranking sites by their link popularity on the Web at large.

Ask Mobile provides direct access to important mobile search categories on the home page, including Web Search, Directions, Images, Business Listings, Maps, Weather, Bloglines(TM), Area Codes, Currency Conversion, Horoscope and Time Zones. Additional services, such as sport scores and movie times, will follow the initial rollout.

To see how Ask Mobile works, consider the following examples: -- Web: Try "Eisenhower" or "Angel Island." Note Recent Search and ability to Narrow or Expand queries. -- Directions: Try "94114 & 94607." Note ability to select List or Turn-by-Turn options, Satellite or Aerial views and Send to Phone. -- Images: Try "polar bears" or "Jessica Alba." -- Business Listings: Try "Starbucks & 10036" or "Chinese & 94114." Note autodial directly from listings, Street and Aerial views of maps with overlaid location pins for matching listings and Zoom and Navigation buttons. -- Maps: Try "San Francisco." Note the unique ability to select Driving Direction, as well as Walking Directions, navigation features and option to send maps and directions to mobile devices. -- Weather: Try "10036." -- Bloglines: Quick access to the Mobile version of Bloglines, the world's number one online RSS aggregator. -- Area Codes: Try "Miami, Fla." -- Currency Conversion: Try "100 EUR & RUB." -- Horoscopes: Try "Leo." -- Time Zones: Try "Monaco." Instinctive Search Tools

Ask.com has been touted by press and industry pundits for its search tools and features, which take search beyond the traditional "blue links", offering searchers a better way to find what they are looking for. Some of these features and tools are available on Ask Mobile, including Smart Answers, which provide shortcuts to answers and tools at the top of the search results page and Zoom Related Search, which provides conceptually-related suggestions to Narrow or Expand queries.

Availability

Ask Mobile is available immediately at http://mobile.ask.com/ . Users accessing http://www.ask.com/ from mobile devices will be automatically recognized and redirected to Ask Mobile.

About Ask.com

A leading search engine on the Web, Ask.com combines world-class search technology with one-of-a-kind search tools to help people get what they are looking for faster. Ask.com sites include Ask.com US (http://www.ask.com/ ), Ask.com Deutschland, Ask.com Espana, Ask.com France, Ask.com Italia, Ask.com Japan, Ask.com Nederlands and Ask.com UK. Additionally, Ask.com syndicates its search technology and advertising units to a network of affiliate partners. Ask.com is a division of IAC Search & Media, a wholly-owned business of IAC/InterActiveCorp. Ask.com b-roll footage is available at http://www.thenewsmarket.com/ask .

Ask.com

CONTACT: Patrick Crisp of Ask.com Public Relations, +1-510-985-7696, orpatrick@ask.com; or Darcy Cobb of Dotted Line Communications, +1-310-472-8600,or darcy@dottedlinecomm.com, for Ask.com

Web site: http://www.ask.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

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