Ever since finding out about AskX, I've been a fan. Ask executed a very nice strategy of engaging users with a more interesting search interaction, listening to their feedback and then launching an update to their site which shifts much of their innovation and learnings to their main property.
Now, I'm not saying that the interface changes have come with an improvement to their search results. In fact, looking at their blog search results (which are now trivially selectable from the main page) I'm not that impressed - a search for the URL of this blog provides somewhat partial results. However, a key aspect of search, especially given the huge redundancies found on the web, is the interface - and they have done a great job. In fact, on their blog search results pages, there are a nice set of features which allow the user to subscribe to feeds, etc. In fact, you can actually read the full text of posts right there in the interface.
Overall, Ask has figured out a way to provide lots of features but, via smart design, present those features in a way which doesn't clutter the interface or confuse the user.
[Via TechCrunch]
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