Ask City: New Competition for Google, Yahoo

Hoping to get more market share, the fourth largest search engine Ask.com has revamped itself to include Ask City.

Owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, Ask City will integrate Ask.com’s popular sites that include Citysearch, Yelp, JudysBook, InsiderPages, ServiceMagic and ReserveAmerica. Fandango and Open Table will also become part of the list, for buying movie tickets and making restaurant reservations, respectively.

Ask CEO Jim Lanzone said in an interview earlier, "Ask City is a new local search application from Ask.com. It has been under development for the better part of 2006. AskCity is available for all US cities, though the content is deepest in the top 50 markets. We plan to take the product international in 2007."

This is the second time that this particular website was re-launched. Bought a year ago by IAC for $2.3 billion in a stock deal, Ask Jeeves.com was the original name of Ask.com.

For ten years, AskJeeves.com was symbolized by a traditional butler who was supposed to make people feel comfortable asking about anything. Changes in the internet user’s information demand prompted the managers to improve the search engine’s capacity.

Search Engine Competition

Analysts concede that the new Ask City is “at least as good as Yahoo's and better than Google's.” Although, it is still unlikely that Ask will dethrone its much larger rivals.

Industry analyst Greg Sterling said, It's a very strong product that immediately puts them in the top tier of local search information. But this is not going to change the balance of power in the general search market."

In October’s polls conducted by comScore, Google enjoys a 45.4% market share, followed by Yahoo, 28.2%, Microsoft sites, 11.7%. and Ask.com has 5.8%.

Meanwhile, researches at the Kelsey Group estimate growth in local advertising revenue will reach $3.4 billion in 2005 to $13 billion in 2010.