Ask Wipes Jeeves Away With Ajax

Ask.com has cleaned up its homepage by removing the long-time iconic butler figure and adding search tools in an Ajax navigation box to the site.

Ask.com homepage has been shifted to the top of the page and reduced to a simple narrow bar, widened and rounded at the left. Jeeves is gone, of course, a decision made by SES New York 2006 keynote speaker and IAC CEO Barry Diller several months ago. In Jeeves' place, Ask.com has followed the other major search engines in providing a very minimal interface for users to begin a search with a query. Yahoo, has provided a little extra functionality to the otherwise Spartan look of its search home page. To the right of the Ask search box, the Search Tools box, with its Web 2.0 rounded corners, awaits. The first eight options for different queries, like Images and Local, change the interface to show example queries. Then there is Desktop Search, which searches the computer and emails, and allows users to upload information to MyStuff, like photos for sharing. A link to here.") Drag this to your Bookmarks. Add to document.write("Del.icio.us") | Yahoo! My Web Technorati: David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.