Collective search is next focus, Ask.com CEO says

By Eric Auchard

SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - Ask.com, the small rival to Google Inc., aims to tap the collective search habits of its 50 million users to improve the relevancy of Web search, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

Jim Lanzone told an Internet marketing conference that his company, a unit of Barry Diller's e-commerce conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp, was looking to merge technologies that unlock the collective insights of its broad audience.

"What Ask becomes is a collective search engine where 50 million users are leaving bread crumbs," Lanzone said.

In an on-stage interview at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Silicon Valley, Lanzone contrasted Ask.com's more social approach to improving Web search to the industry's current push to offer greater personalization.

He said attempts at automated personalization often fail in practice to give users what they want.

Instead, Web search can be improved by understanding the aggregate behavior of different types of users. This collective approach means users stand to benefit from what users with similar interests have gleaned from previous searches.

"Collective search is something that Ask really believes in," Lanzone said, adding that personalizing what different users see is only a small piece of further improving search.

To be sure, the changes are one of degree, rather than an absolute shift. All major Web search systems rely on algorithms that analyze the collective surfing habits of their users in order to determine what is relevant to the biggest audience.