Monday, October 6, 2008
Ask: The Little Search Engine That Couldn’t
With a 4.8 percent share of the search market, according to comScore, Ask has long been the inveterate fourth-place contestant in a sector overwhelmingly dominated by Google. And try as it might–with both redesigns and ad campaigns–the company just can’t seem to build any audience beyond that. So there’s little reason to believe that Ask’s latest redesign–its third in as many years and the 11th since it first launched–won’t be as ineffective as those that have gone before it.
“We see little to stop Google from reaching 70 percent market share eventually; the question, really, comes down to, ‘How long could it take?’” RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan asked that question back in March 2006. Today he has his answer: Not long at all, really.
