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The Ask Jeeves-ification of online search

Google’s Cathy Edwards onstage at Google I/O 2023.
Does Google even care about search anymore? | Screenshot taken from the Google I/O 2023 keynote replay

There are some who will tell you that Ask Jeeves was right all along. I’m less sure that’s true. In fact, I am starting to think that if you are a technical person who is considering a startup, Google’s fascination with adding a slow and unreliable AI chat to its results is an opening for you to put a brick on the gas pedal and absolutely run Google over.

Ask Jeeves launched in 1997, and the idea was that you’d type a natural-language query into the box, and the valet would come back with an answer. (Jeeves is named for P.G. Wodehouse’s famous character, a near-omniscient man with a “feudal spirit.” Disclosure: my cat is also named for this character.) It was popular until Google Search entered the scene — an engine with a better ability…

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Author: Elizabeth Lopatto. [Source Link (*), The Verge – All Posts]

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