Remember Ask? You know, the search engine with the Butler. While the company doesn't get brought up in the discussion as much as it once did, it has not surrendered to Google and it's other competitors just yet.
Ask has now announced some advances in its semantic search technology. If you're unfamiliar with the concept of Semantic Search, Wikipedia explains it:
Semantic Search attempts to augment and improve the search process by leveraging XML and RDF data from semantic networks to disambiguate semantic search queries and web text in order to increase relevancy of results.
Tomasz Imielinski, EVP of Global Search and Answers puts it, "Whilst integration of this technology is currently limited, it certainly shows a level of innovation sometimes lacking from some of Ask’s competitors. On a personal level I am not sure this is going to lift Ask above competitors such as Google, Yahoo and MSN in the short term, however it is certainly indicative of an ongoing commitment to search, which is often in doubt."
If you ask me, they should have never dropped the "Jeeves," a brand that many people came to recognize. Imielinski promises more improvements on the semantic search front in the future.
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