It was cool technology for it’s time. Search engines demystified much of the web surfing experience for uninitiated users and AskJeeves was the first to be able to take plain language questions and return valid hits, unlike most of it’s competition at the time (specifically AOL).
It just seems unimpressive now because searching has become so optimized while simultaneously the internet has become a smaller information ecosystem by becoming more centralized so searching for answers to common questions is often unnecessary.
It was cool technology for it’s time. Search engines demystified much of the web surfing experience for uninitiated users and AskJeeves was the first to be able to take plain language questions and return valid hits, unlike most of it’s competition at the time (specifically AOL).
It just seems unimpressive now because searching has become so optimized while simultaneously the internet has become a smaller information ecosystem by becoming more centralized so searching for answers to common questions is often unnecessary.