CogBlog

The new Ask Jeeves search platform appears to be just an Ask Jeeves branded version of Looksmart's platform. I noticed the similarity in their interfaces, and it seems there is other evidence as well.

Looksmart's account admin:


Ask Jeeves account admin:


Ask Jeeves has said they built "a lot" of it themselves, but it appears the management interface is pulled directly from Looksmart. For marketers this will just mean the headache of one more not-so-great interface to deal with. At least it is one we already know from Looksmart.

I think a lot of 2nd tier search engines seem to discount the importance of a highly usable interface for advertisers. It's almost a cliche at this point, but they really could learn a few things from Google. Their management interface remains the fastest, most intuitive out there.

Yahoo/Overture is a strong second, and could be much better if they could throw off the Microsoft-specific interface design philosophy. I truly don't understand why anyone would build a web-application that requires Internet Explorer on a Windows PC to operate properly! I could almost see it if the result was something actually better than the alternative, but it never is.