Ask has launched a new Android app offering a mobile Q&A service to users. The launch follows that of its iPhone app, which recently surpassed a million downloads.
“We have placed a big bet on mobile as part of our growth strategy, and it’s paying off with four times the answer rate as our site users,” said Jason Rupp, senior director of product management at Ask.com. “Over the last three quarters there was triple digit growth in traffic from smartphones to the Ask.com mobile site, and 60 percent of that was Android. To win in mobile, you must win on Android.”
That emphasis on mobile has become quite evident. Here’s an interview we did with the company at SXSW a few months back, discussing its Ask Around location-based Q&A app:
Features of the new Android app include:
- Voice to text: Simply ask questions, no typing required.
- Web combined with real people: Get web results as well as top-voted published answers from other Ask.com users in milliseconds.
- Send a question to a real user: Want another opinion? Route the question to a live person in the Ask.com Q&A community, or browse and respond to other users’ questions.
- Set it and forget it: Push notifications alert you to when a new answer has arrived.
- Personalize Q&A by interest: New for Android users, the app allows you to filter Q&A by topics that match your profile.
- Follow feature: Follow users who provide interesting answers, and personalize your Q&A experience with content from these connections.
Last week, Ask announced some new partnerships it is using to help bolster its “Smart Answers”.
