A shame. I never got to use Ask since by then Google was already dominant. I'm sorta glad they didn't just pivot the product to be an AI Chatbot and focus on AI in general like Allbirds/New Birds...
A shame. I never got to use Ask since by then Google was already dominant. I'm sorta glad they didn't just pivot the product to be an AI Chatbot and focus on AI in general like Allbirds/New Birds AI I guess.
Although Ask was never my go to, it was certainly one of the ones that I used years ago when I couldn’t find the main thing that I wanted on Dogpile or Yahoo or Lycos. I haven’t been to Ask or...
Although Ask was never my go to, it was certainly one of the ones that I used years ago when I couldn’t find the main thing that I wanted on Dogpile or Yahoo or Lycos. I haven’t been to Ask or queried Jeeves in years, but it will be missed. Seems like everything is shutting down lately.
Someone else who remembers Lycos! I used to use Lycos and Hotbot before Google took off. It's interesting that my needs in a search engine have completely changed over time. Nowadays, I basically...
Someone else who remembers Lycos! I used to use Lycos and Hotbot before Google took off.
It's interesting that my needs in a search engine have completely changed over time. Nowadays, I basically want grep for the internet, so I can find exactly what I need to answer a question at a given moment. Back then, it was more like exploring. "I wonder if there are any pages on the internet about this thing..."
The slow introduction of sponsored search results was the beginning of the end. A lot of us were popping off saying stuff like "this is how it starts; first they'll give you a few advertisements...
The slow introduction of sponsored search results was the beginning of the end. A lot of us were popping off saying stuff like "this is how it starts; first they'll give you a few advertisements and before you know it they've siloed you and all you get is what they want you to see" and we were called alarmists by the usual suspects.
But yeah, grep for the internet would be fuggin' sweet. I also wish websites weren't allowed to style themselves anymore, or were at least held to more rigid standards if they do. My wish list is: no more CSS or JavaScript ever again, and that nothing, and I mean nothing like Flash should ever be allowed to be repeated. I worked in website design for years (and I still do, to a much more reduced extent) and the amount of geegaws and visual noise that websites flood themselves with is so annoying.
Hotbot! I had totally forgotten about that site, but as soon as you mentioned their name I could immediately picture that gloriously 90s green and blue site. What a lovely trip down memory lane...
Hotbot! I had totally forgotten about that site, but as soon as you mentioned their name I could immediately picture that gloriously 90s green and blue site. What a lovely trip down memory lane this thread has been. :P
Ah, another internet yesteryear flashbang tossed into the middle of my day. I recall that, now. And for some reason it knocked "AltaVista" loose in my brain. I went to go look and things are still...
Ah, another internet yesteryear flashbang tossed into the middle of my day. I recall that, now. And for some reason it knocked "AltaVista" loose in my brain. I went to go look and things are still "active", like Lycos (now owned by an advertising agency), Dogpile (also owned by an advertising company), and Excite (though it's also owned by Ask, so...) -- I linked to the Wikipedia pages for a reason.
A shame. I never got to use Ask since by then Google was already dominant. I'm sorta glad they didn't just pivot the product to be an AI Chatbot and focus on AI in general like Allbirds/New Birds AI I guess.
Every single of the 17,576 combinations of three-letter .com domains are taken, so it's worth someone picking it up and turning it into exactly that.
Although Ask was never my go to, it was certainly one of the ones that I used years ago when I couldn’t find the main thing that I wanted on Dogpile or Yahoo or Lycos. I haven’t been to Ask or queried Jeeves in years, but it will be missed. Seems like everything is shutting down lately.
Someone else who remembers Lycos! I used to use Lycos and Hotbot before Google took off.
It's interesting that my needs in a search engine have completely changed over time. Nowadays, I basically want grep for the internet, so I can find exactly what I need to answer a question at a given moment. Back then, it was more like exploring. "I wonder if there are any pages on the internet about this thing..."
The slow introduction of sponsored search results was the beginning of the end. A lot of us were popping off saying stuff like "this is how it starts; first they'll give you a few advertisements and before you know it they've siloed you and all you get is what they want you to see" and we were called alarmists by the usual suspects.
But yeah, grep for the internet would be fuggin' sweet. I also wish websites weren't allowed to style themselves anymore, or were at least held to more rigid standards if they do. My wish list is: no more CSS or JavaScript ever again, and that nothing, and I mean nothing like Flash should ever be allowed to be repeated. I worked in website design for years (and I still do, to a much more reduced extent) and the amount of geegaws and visual noise that websites flood themselves with is so annoying.
Edit: I went and looked and Lycos is still in business
Hotbot! I had totally forgotten about that site, but as soon as you mentioned their name I could immediately picture that gloriously 90s green and blue site. What a lovely trip down memory lane this thread has been. :P
Ah, another internet yesteryear flashbang tossed into the middle of my day. I recall that, now. And for some reason it knocked "AltaVista" loose in my brain. I went to go look and things are still "active", like Lycos (now owned by an advertising agency), Dogpile (also owned by an advertising company), and Excite (though it's also owned by Ask, so...) -- I linked to the Wikipedia pages for a reason.