The search engine Ask.com, which once was Ask Jeeves, the natural language search engine, is trying out yet another skin, called Ask X. While the search homepage isn't much changed, except the reflected logo expected now of Web 2.0 apps, the new three panel interface offers you "search control" on the left, search results in the centre, and in the right panel a "preview of other types of search results, including video, news, images, blogs, shopping, encyclopedia and more."

Like Google's SearchMash, Ask X is powered by Ajax. As a time saving tip, if you mouse over one of these results and click on the magnifying glass that appears, you can conduct the relevant search right from your results page. Of course, you can also use Ask's Binoculars feature to preview a search result and save it to your account.

That said, Ask X does feel more like a replacement than a testing ground based on its look and feel and integration into the Ask domain.

written by Robert M.