Ask.com has released its mobile application for iPhone that allows users to ask and answer questions from their mobile devices.

Previously only limited to a subset of Ask.com website users, the full Ask.com Q&A experience is now available to anyone who downloads the app.

“Millions of people come to Ask.com with their questions everyday – now they don’t have to wait until they get back to their computers to get the answers they need," said Doug Leeds, President, Ask.com US.

It’s that time of year when all of the search engines are releasing their lists of top searches. Dictionary.com may not get the traffic of a Google, or even an Ask, which is owned by the same company, but its list provides a different perspective to the picture of what people are searching for.

Where Google is a search engine, and Bing is a "decision engine," Ask.com seeks to be an answer engine. Ask thinks the future of search is in questions and answers. This means, you should be able to ask a direct question and get a specific answer, rather than pages of results, which can lead you to finding the answer on your own.

On Friday Ask.com announced that it has promoted Doug Leeds to President of Ask.com U.S. In addition, Tony Gentile has joined the company as Senior Vice President, Product Management.

Leeds has been with Ask Networks since early 2006, where he has held several different positions. Most recently, he has been President of the company’s Dictionary.com and Chief Operating officer of Ask Networks. Now as President, he will oversee the US business for Ask.com and lead the development, launch, and execution of Ask’s strategy in the U.S.

Ask.com has added a new feature to its search engine homepage designed to help online shoppers find the best deals on the Web.

The IAC owned property has introduced "Ask Deals," a proprietary database of more than 1 million savings offers from national and local retailers across hundreds of product categories.

The Ask homepage now features a new tab labeled "Deals" for users who only want to view the best offers online. The Ask Deals database is continuously updated to provide users with the most current savings offers.

Ask.com has tapped Anchor Intelligence and will use its ClearMark software to score all of its paid search clicks.

The goal of Ask’s partnership with Anchor Intelligence is to protect its advertisers and partners from paying for fraudulent clicks.

Ask.com has partnered with security firm Symantec to offer users safer search results in an effort to attract more traffic.

Ask and Symantec developed Safe Search that makes searching the Web safer by providing users with ratings before they visit a site that could damage or infect their computer.

Another search engine, another set of top ten lists for 2008. But hey, they’re always pretty interesting as a sort of mirror of our society.

Ask.com, a web site that offers search for web sites, images, news, blogs, video, maps and directions, local search and shopping, launched their new “Election Poll Smart Answers” that gives you local polling information in just one click: and it’s a lot faster and easier than any other major search engine.

Ask.com Smart Answers are special search results placed at the top of the Ask.com search results page that have quick facts and links to authoritative content from highly respected sources.

US market share of search queries rose again at Google, while that of its next three competitors dropped.

A bright spot for Ask.com emerged with news of a partnership with image sharing service Photobucket.

In a move to significantly expand the reach of its network, Ask.com has just acquired the Lexico Publishing Group, owners of dictionary.com, thesaurus.com and reference.com

Nothing like a typo everybody in the world gets to see. Ask.com was proud of itself for celebrating Cinco de Mayo via its homepage, especially since Google decided not to honor America’s excuse-to-drink-tequila-on-Monday holiday. Presumably the Mexican lass twirling beneath was too busy to question why she was celebrating Cinco do Mayo instead.

In his look at a possible search industry future with Google and Microsoft baying like hounds at each other, longtime observer Sullivan suggested Ask.com simply won’t matter in the future.

Well over two-thirds of the US search market’s queries passed through the digestive tract of Google, while its next three closest competitors gave up share.

A few headlines have popped up today with the good news. I spoke with Ask.com spokesman and VP Nicholas Graham in a personal interview today to clarify Ask’s announcement earlier this week.

“The idea that we’re going to become a ‘women’s site’ is not correct,” says Graham. Ask says that the original AP report had an erroneous headline, and it’s pretty much been downhill from there.