Ask.Com is advertising. It recently released two commercials intended for US audiences, both of which use monkeys to express ideas an older English butler could not.
The idea is that search is evolving and Ask is ahead of the game when it comes to serving up information in ways its users want. Two features of the Ask search interface are mentioned in the ads.
The first is the binoculars feature that offers a quick glimpse of an image of sites in the results. The images are often older and do not necessarily correspond with the current or cached version of the site, but it does save users time by showing them a vision of the site before they surf to it.
The second feature mentioned in the commercials is the Narrow Your Search option, which gives users a series of alternative keyword phrases to search under, adding common words to entered search queries.
Ask is growing more popular in North America and Europe . Its fresh advertising campaign should help spread the message of Ask as a credible alternative to Google, Yahoo and MSN.