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An Interview With Ask Jeeves' Jim Lanzone
by Andy Beal ©Copyright 2004

If you plan on attending Jupiter Media's Search Engine Strategies 
(http://www.jupiterevents.com/sew/winter04/index.html) conference 
in New York on March 1st thru 4th, you'll no doubt hear a lot of 
buzz surrounding the future of search engine technology. With 
Yahoo recently switching to a new and improved Inktomi index, 
Google testing localized search and MSN promising to enter the 
foray sometime in the next twelve months, you can bet that the 
search engines we know today will be much improved over the next 
couple of years.

While the spotlight may be on Google, Yahoo and MSN, Ask Jeeves 
has quietly improved their search engine to ensure a user 
experience that is second-to-none. While Ask could comfortably 
rest on their laurels, they know that the competitive world of 
search is constantly changing and in order to continue their 
success they need to ensure that they remain at the cutting edge 
of search engine technology.

After being fortunate enough to sit down with Microsoft's Robert 
Scoble and discuss his thoughts on search engine technology 
development, I caught up with Ask Jeeves' vice president of 
products, Jim Lanzone and asked him his thoughts on what the 
future of search might hold.

[Andy Beal] Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions. 
Let's start with what you see happening in the future?

[Jim Lanzone] Unfortunately, we can't talk publicly about the 
most exciting search technologies we're building, because they 
are proprietary to us and we wouldn't want Google copying us 
now would we? We have some very tasty special sauce we'll be 
launching over the course of the next few quarters that will 
make our search results perceivably better than the 
competition's.  

[AB] Without giving too much away to your competitors, can you 
give any hints as to what might be upcoming from Ask Jeeves?

[JL] In the area of things we can talk about, we are very 
excited about our work on both the search technology side and 
the search experience side. They are equally important to 
helping people find what they need.  

Regarding the user experience, we've had a lot of success with 
Smart Search 
(http://sp.ask.com/docs/about/tech_features.html#smart) the 
past year, and you can expect to see us continue to pursue that 
strategy. Smart Search is more of an ideology here than a brand 
name. It means giving the user smarter results in a more 
intuitive way, and what that means differs depending on what 
kind of search you're doing. 

[AB] What new developments in search do you see happening in the 
next 3-5 years?

[JL] Because accessing information is such an integral part of 
our lives, I believe your interaction with search will change 
dramatically in the next 3-5 years. You will be able to access 
search databases from other sources than the keyboard (with 
voice recognition technology, maybe), and on different platforms 
(such as the GPS in your car). 

[AB] GPS (global positioning system)? How do you see GPS and 
search interacting?
 
[JL] For example, a GPS with search capabilities could tell you 
where to find the best local pizza restaurant or nearest medical 
clinic in a neighborhood you visit. Of course, in order for that 
to happen, local search capabilities will have to vastly improve, 
as will voice recognition technology. 

[AB] Apart from GPS, do you see search having an impact on any 
other consumer products?

[JL] Search is the #1 activity on the Web, and there's no reason 
why the utility of search or the Internet should be restricted 
to your PC or Mac. I believe a device will come along and have 
the same impact on search as the iPod did for music. Cell phones 
will probably adapt more to this device, ultimately, than the 
other way around, due to usability issues, and the user's desire 
to carry only one device. Standing on a street corner and using 
this device, you will search for a local restaurant, or a cab 
company, through the Internet. Instead of going to the cab 
company's website, you will click a link and initiate a phone 
call. The search engine will be compensated for the call (this 
is the traditional Yellow Pages model of "metered calling") 
rather than the click.  

[AB] Let's take it one stage further. Assuming there were no 
restrictions on technology, what new feature would you like to 
see introduced by the search engines?

[JL] We'd like to one day be able to understand a user's query 
perfectly, regardless of how they phrase it. Understanding the 
query perfectly would do much more to impact the quality of 
results for the everyday user (whether novice or expert) than 
perfecting the results themselves (though obviously we're trying 
to do both!). Much of our work is geared towards overcoming the 
hurdles of technology to make this dream a reality. After that, 
things like voice-enabled search will flow more easily.

[AB] What if cost wasn't an issue? Any dream product?

[JL] If cost wasn't an issue, we'd also like to see an Ask 
Jeeves-enabled PDA in every user's hand!

[AB] Companies such as Eurekster are betting that social 
networking is the future of quality search engine results, 
what are your thoughts?

[JL] In terms of the social networking devices being developed 
by other companies, there are two types we're seeing get 
attention. The first is the kind being used by the likes of 
Friendster (http://www.friendster.com/) and Tribe.net 
(http://www.tribe.net/), where social networks are being used 
to help people find a job or a gardener or a date. The potential 
problem with this is the "reverse network effect", whereby the 
more the network grows, the less useful the recommendations are 
by those in the network. For example, how much more useful is 
it to me, versus the yellow pages or a search engine, to be 
recommended a contractor by my friend's cousin's neighbor? Now 
imagine if that's how I'm finding a date for next Friday night?  

Meanwhile, with something like Eurekster 
(http://www.eurekster.com/), the "social networking search 
engine", you may face the same problem. At what point are these 
results more useful than those given by our "normal" engine, 
which is already getting smarter and smarter about who and when 
it serves up certain results. So, in the end, we believe that 
social networking as defined and utilized by Teoma is the best 
of breed way to go in this area, and the most effective growth 
will be built on its foundation.

[AB] What makes Teoma the "best of breed"?

[JL] Our Teoma (http://www.teoma.com/) technology is predicated 
on social networking theory, as originally pursued by the Clever 
team (http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/k53/clever.html) at IBM in 
the mid-90's. Teoma was the first (and is still the only) 
search technology that can identify the Web graph's expert hubs 
and authorities in real time.  

[AB] What is Teoma doing that the IBM team couldn't do?

[JL] The Clever team identified that it was a better mousetrap 
for producing relevant search results, but thought it would take 
a server farm the size of the state of Texas to produce in real 
time. Teoma does it in a split second. Others questioned whether 
the technology would scale past a 50 million document index. 
We're now at 2 billion. Remember that Teoma is a much younger 
technology than our competitors, so in some ways we're only now 
starting to see the power of it. And as it grows, social 
networking will continue to be at the heart of what makes Teoma 
different and special.

[AB] Do you foresee a time when commercial search results 
(product/services) will be separated from informational search 
results (white papers/educational sites)?

[JL]Yes, similar to Yellow vs. White Pages. But since index 
search is already separate from P4P links, this is a much more 
important prediction for the future of paid inclusion. The 
future of paid inclusion is more likely to be in separate, 
possibly 100% paid indexes, than it is the current mix of paid 
and unpaid links, and structured and unstructured data. It's 
better for monetization, better for relevance, and probably 
better for the FTC. When you think about it, this is already 
happening with a site like Shopping.com 
(http://www.shopping.com/), which is basically product search 
with a 100% paid index. Same thing with the Yellow Pages. I 
could see this model extended to jobs, airfares, and even 
adult sites.

[AB] We've talked a little about providing more relevant search 
results. If search engine users gave up a little of their privacy 
and allowed their search habits to be monitored, would this allow 
the search engines to provide better, customized results?

[JL] Some search engine users are already giving up their privacy 
willingly, for example with the latest Google 2.0 toolbar. The 
reason why Google wants this information is because the answer 
to your question is a resounding "yes"! Even more important than 
results customized for individuals, however, which will have some 
utility but not as much as some may think, are results customized 
for groups of individuals who exhibit similar characteristics. 
For example, those who frequently visit certain sites. Moreover, 
search engines can use this information to track the quality of 
their competitors' results, because these toolbars can - if users 
allow them to - track their usage on other sites.

[AB] Jim, I appreciate you taking the time to answer these 
questions. What last thing would you like readers to know about 
Ask Jeeves?

[JL] We'd just like to add that we're very proud of the service 
Ask Jeeves has become the past 18 months. It is now a world-class 
search site, featuring world-class search results thanks to 
Teoma and a world-class search experience thanks to Smart Search. 
2004 will be an exciting year for us.

Anyone connected with the search engine industry probably shares 
my excitement that the future holds some great advances in 
technology. Search engine users are going to be in for a thrill 
as Google finally faces some legitimate challenges from a host 
of search engine companies, both large and small. You can keep 
up with the latest search engine news and developments at Search 
Engine Watch or by visiting my blog, www.SearchEngineLowdown.com 
(http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/).

================================================================
Andy Beal is vice president of search marketing for WebSourced's 
KeywordRanking.com (http://www.keywordranking.com/) division and 
editor of Search Engine Lowdown (http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/).
================================================================

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