LISA: LISA interviewed Ask Jeeves last April and we discussed its launch in Japan during 2001. Could you update us on the latest developments with Ask Jeeves Japan KK?

Claudio Pinkus: Ask Jeeves Japan KK has made a lot of progress since last April, focusing primarily on the Jeeves Solutions side of the business. The company is fully staffed up with a strong sales department and well-trained editors, who can support fast and efficient customer implementations. Ask Jeeves Japan launched its first corporate implementation for Compaq Japan (Ask Compaq Japanese), in July of 2001, and expects to launch several additional implementations for major Japanese corporations over the next eight weeks. Though the down economy is certainly creating a challenging market, we see AJ Japan gaining traction and we are looking forward to expanding our customer base throughout 2002.

LISA: Ask Jeeves has adopted for its Japanese version Basis Technology's natural language processing technology. What strengths and weaknesses does this technology bring to the problem of processing intuitive natural language questions?

Claudio Pinkus: Yes, since its launch, Ask Jeeves Japan has worked closely with Basis Technology. As anybody who is familiar with the subject can attest, adapting natural language to work in Japanese is extremely challenging. That said, we believe our Answers product is doing a superior job of handling and answering natural language queries in Japanese. Visit the Compaq Japan and see how the Jeeves Solutions implementation is providing relevant responses and a great user experience, similar to the English language Ask Compaq site.

LISA: On the subject of natural language processing, is Ask Jeeves interested in using any form of translation automation in future?

Claudio Pinkus: We are certainly interested in possible applications of machine translation technology for Ask Jeeves. However, you must keep in mind that machine translation is primarily focused on converting meaning from one language to another, while we are focused on understanding meaning and providing a relevant response. At present, it’s not clear how we can use machine translation effectively to improve our technology and the user experience.

LISA: Access by mobile phones is one characteristic of the Internet in Asia. For example, many Japanese portals have now fitted search engines which are accessible to mobile phones, as with Google being adapted to i-mode. Does Ask Jeeves have plans to expand into mobile markets in Asia?

Claudio Pinkus: Because of the tremendous penetration of the i-mode phones in Japan, the mobile market is certainly a very attractive market for Ask Jeeves Japan. They are currently investigating possible applications and partners. As for other markets in Asia, we will certainly include opportunities for mobile applications as part of the evaluation process.

LISA: On the topic of the mobile market, it seems logical to consider the possibility of using speech technology for information retrieval, given limited screen size and cumbersome mobile phone keypad entry. Does Ask Jeeves have any interest or ongoing research into the use of speech recognition and synthesis technologies to deliver a voice-activated search system?

Claudio Pinkus: I agree that voice applications are a logical extension of our existing NLP technology. We have partnerships in place with a number of voice technology companies and will continue to explore development of voice applications with key strategic partners. We do not have a definitive schedule for the release of voice enabled products.

LISA: From our last interview, we understand that Ask Jeeves is keen to create a human–centric search system rather than one in which the user has to adjust to the computer. In a sense, this philosophy manifests itself in Ask Jeeves' approach using intuitive natural language questions. What is the art of delivering what askers are seeking? And in what ways is Ask Jeeves becoming even more user-friendly?

Claudio Pinkus: Ask Jeeves provides searchers with a variety of ways to find answers to their questions. We use a combination of technologies to deliver the most relevant results. Context is an important key to understanding the motivations behind the user's query, thus providing a more human or intuitive experience. We determine context in two ways 1) our natural language technology and 2) our search technologies. Our acquisition of the Teoma search technology supports the type of experience that we are trying to provide.

In addition to looking at the Web from a global perspective, Teoma also examines it from a local perspective. This means that Teoma can divide and organize Web results into naturally occurring communities. The user gets increased flexibility in tailoring their search experience to meet their needs. For example, some users may prefer the conversational quality of our Answers technology and others may prefer the contextual grouping provided by Teoma. We provide choice in terms of the experience that best fits the user’s need as they find the information they are looking for.

LISA: Last September, Ask Jeeves acquired Teoma which industry sources such as SearchEngineWatch.com consider to be a superior, next generation search engine. Has this technology now been fully integrated into Ask Jeeves? Does it help Ask Jeeves to become a human-oriented query system?

Claudio Pinkus: Teoma’s search results were integrated into Ask.com in December 2001. Since introducing these results, user satisfaction on Ask.com has increased by 25 percent and site abandonment has decreased by 15 percent. Additionally, user frequency is up and continues to increase. Teoma technology leverages the naturally occurring communities on the Internet, which is consistent with our efforts to ‘humanize’ the Internet.

What this means is that Teoma can divide and organize Web results into naturally occurring communities. For example, if a person were to type in the keyword "used cars" Teoma would organize the results into contextual communities such as "buy used cars," "compare used cars," "Kelly Blue Book values," etc. Teoma does all this in real time. This is important because we can organize the Web in terms of its actual structure, rather than relying upon a set of prescriptive rules. We believe this approach delivers the most relevant answers to users’ queries.

LISA: Apparently the name Teoma is derived from a Gaelic word meaning "expert". Teoma boasts that its search results are both "relevant" and "authoritative" - answers we would expect from an expert. Could you give us some examples to demonstrate these?

Claudio Pinkus: Teoma provides better results than any other search engine because it goes beyond traditional page ranking methods to determine authority in addition to relevancy. To determine the authority or quality of a site’s content Teoma uses Subject-Specific Popularity^SM. Subject-Specific Popularity ranks site authority in terms of the number of same-subject pages that reference it, not just general popularity.

To better understand why this next step is important, picture yourself as a participant in the television show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” It’s time for the final question and you’re not absolutely sure of the answer. For a million dollars you could ask the audience their opinion (like using other leading search technologies) or you could call an expert on the subject (like Subject-Specific Popularity).

An example of this would be the query "Taxes" on Teoma vs. "Taxes" on Google. Teoma's results rank the IRS, the most authoritative tax site on the Web, as one of the top results. The IRS does not appear on the first page of Google except in the form of an advertisement. Instead, MSN Money Central is the top site. According to Google's PageRank™ methodology, MSN is a very high status site so it must be the most relevant. The flaw with this is that it is not necessarily the most authoritative site for the query "taxes."

LISA: Many search engines now offer searches over images. Has Ask Jeeves had to make any adjustments to facilitate searches for image?

Claudio Pinkus: Our market research has shown that image search is not in highly demand among our Ask.com users. So we do not currently have plans to offer this feature on Ask.com. However, we will add this feature to Teoma.com in the future, though a timeline has not been set.

LISA: Although the July 2001 search service report by Jupiter Media Matrix ranks Ask Jeeves third after Google and GoTo.com (excluding search engine pages of portals such as Yahoo), Ask Jeeves is yet to make a serious impact in the Japanese market. What is your strategy in this particular market and in Asia as a whole?

Claudio Pinkus: As I said, Ask Jeeves Japan initially focused its efforts on launching its Jeeves Solutions business. Because of the state of the Japanese economy and the drop in online advertising in Japan, Ask Jeeves Japan is still evaluating the best timing for launching a consumer web site in that market. In a similar vein, we definitely see some long-term opportunities is the Asian market, and have received a lot of interest in our Teoma technology, but we need to determine the best timing for pursuing these initiatives.

LISA: What is the next big thing for Ask Jeeves?

Claudio Pinkus: Search is currently the second most popular online activity after email. We are also working on plans for an upcoming official launch of Teoma.com. By offering a pure search experience in addition to the search plus experience we provide on Ask.com, we stand to capture a greater share of the search market. We also intend to syndicate Teoma's search technology to portals and Web sites interested in superior search. Currently, we syndicate our Popularity technology to more then 50 sites including MSN, InfoSpace, AT&T Worldnet and iWon among others. With Teoma's search offerings we intend to expand this portion of our business and create a broader distribution for our search services.

In January, we acquired Octopus Technology, enterprise connectivity software, and are integrating into our JeevesOne product (mentioned in the answers to the first two questions). Octopus Technology enables JeevesOne to access a wide variety of data stored in companies’ enterprise systems, and will add to JeevesOne's ability to provide superior connected self-service to corporations and government.

For example, when end users ask questions such as "Do you have 100 2X4's in stock in your Oakland store?" or make requests such as "Please transfer $100 from my checking into my savings account", companies can direct these queries to answers, or actual enable their requests without engaging in a person-to-person dialog. And by providing end users with deeper access to information that resides within enterprise systems, Jeeves Solutions helps companies reduce support costs, increase user satisfaction and capture new levels of customer intelligence.

Claudio Pinkus was interviewed for LISA by Minako O'Hagan. He can be reached at claudio@askjeeves.com.