Matt
June 20th, 2004, 11:50 PM
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ask Jeeves Inc., a smaller rival to Web search leaders Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc., on Saturday announced new features designed to help Internet users find information on its Ask.com site more quickly.
Ask Jeeves, of Emeryville, California, said its new "binoculars" site preview tool, which is now in a testing phase, allows searchers to view sites that come up on the results page without needing to click through to those sites.
The new technology is activated when users move their cursors over the binoculars icon that appears next to search results. That action brings up a snapshot view of the site to help users quickly decide if that site's information is relevant to their search.
"The binoculars feature allows users to say good-bye to pogo-sticking; that time-consuming process of repeatedly returning to the results page," Jim Lanzone, Ask Jeeves' senior vice president of search properties, said.
Citing an independent user study conducted by VeriTest, the testing division of Lionbridge Technologies Inc.(Nasdaq:LIOX - news), Ask Jeeves said binoculars reduced the number of clicks required to find relevant results by 50 percent to 70 percent per search.
Ask Jeeves has applied for a patent on the technology, which is already available on Ask.com.
The company also announced several new "Smart Search" categories, including movies, wedding registry, people search, famous people search and definitions.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1212&e=3&u=/nm/20040620/wr_nm/tech_askjeeves_dc&sid=95573503
Ask Jeeves, of Emeryville, California, said its new "binoculars" site preview tool, which is now in a testing phase, allows searchers to view sites that come up on the results page without needing to click through to those sites.
The new technology is activated when users move their cursors over the binoculars icon that appears next to search results. That action brings up a snapshot view of the site to help users quickly decide if that site's information is relevant to their search.
"The binoculars feature allows users to say good-bye to pogo-sticking; that time-consuming process of repeatedly returning to the results page," Jim Lanzone, Ask Jeeves' senior vice president of search properties, said.
Citing an independent user study conducted by VeriTest, the testing division of Lionbridge Technologies Inc.(Nasdaq:LIOX - news), Ask Jeeves said binoculars reduced the number of clicks required to find relevant results by 50 percent to 70 percent per search.
Ask Jeeves has applied for a patent on the technology, which is already available on Ask.com.
The company also announced several new "Smart Search" categories, including movies, wedding registry, people search, famous people search and definitions.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1212&e=3&u=/nm/20040620/wr_nm/tech_askjeeves_dc&sid=95573503