Algo Blog

Ask.com has recently launched an ad campaign centered around “the algorithm”. They are obliquely referring to their search algorithm “Teoma” when they say “The algorithm is from Jersey”. They even ran a full-page ad in various major newspapers written in the style of an academic article. The ad is reproduced at thealgorithm.com. The only fact I could glean from it was that they use something resembling HITS in that they give each page a hub and authority value. This is reflected in the Wikipedia entry for Teoma, which states that it was inspired by IBM’s “CLEVER” search engine, which in turn used Kleinberg’s HITS algorithm. Other than that, it’s all marketing fluff designed to make Ask’s core technology seem complicated and cool, despite the fact that it apparently hasn’t changed for a decade. (Of course, the proof of Fermat’s last theorem is older than that, and it’s about as complicated as things get around here.)

I view this campaign as being kind of like how Starbucks is to coffee. Small coffeehouses love to bash Starbucks. However, Starbucks has raised the awareness of coffee as a gourmet beverage and the small coffeehouses profit because of it. So, I am glad that Ask has raised people’s awareness of algorithms. Maybe it will make me seem more valuable.