Ask Jeeves and Urinating Canines

by David Berkowitz 

First, there were butlers.  Then, there were search engines.  Today, there is Jeeves, a hybrid less expensive than the former and more user-friendly than the latter.  Others have followed in Jeeves's footsteps, but his loafers are hard to fill.  While he is no longer an original, he continues to be invaluable for net-novices and net-addicts alike. 

I remember the day I first met Jeeves.  I saw a banner ad for his website, www.ask.com, and being the kind of guy with one of those "I break for butler" bumper stickers on my laptop, I paid Jeeves a visit.  Within hours, I was on the phone with my webaphobic parents, screaming, "I found a search engine that even you guys could use!"  After reminding me how offensive I was, they signed online, only to call me the next day saying, "You're right, even we could use this thing!" 

What makes Jeeves tick?  How is it that by pressing all his buttons, he turned me on?  The answer lies in his usability.  Jeeves is the kind of guy I love to use.  He broke away from the standard of entering keywords into the search engine's query line (i.e. dog, house-train, fern, pee) and welcomes actual questions, even with punctuation (i.e. How do I house-train the dog so he won't pee on the fern?). 

Jeeves's answers are divided into two main sections.  The top half include a few common questions relating to the topic that might help you directly. In the above example, Jeeves can tell you about ferns, urinary tract infections, or selecting dogs.  If you're still not happy, a pull-down menu will allow you to instead find out about various plants, other bladder and kidney disorders, or different pets such as the potbellied pig (I kid you not).  If those don't work out, as they didn't for my greenery-wetting canine, the bottom half of the results page includes a menu of the most relevant suggestions from various popular search engines.  The first result linked to an About.com article called "Treating the Housesoiling Dog."  This article taught me all about startling my dog while urinating on the fern. Unfortunately, I forgot to water my fern since then so it dried out and died, but at least my dog is scared to death of relieving itself on members of the plant kingdom. 

When Jeeves takes you to a new site to find your answer, the Ask Jeeves banner remains atop the page so you can easily return if you weren't satisfied.  The banner includes an option to "remove frames" when his service is no longer needed.  Jeeves works for the people. 

Before Jeeves, my sworn search engine of choice was Dogpile.  I tried typing my question into Dogpile, and only four sites out of 12 had any results. One included About.com with the life-saving article at the top of the list, another had links to animal porn (which my local library never could provide), and two others told me all about dogs and ferns.  These four sites came up with results whether I used a question or keywords, but there was all this trudging and scrolling to go through before I could find my article of choice.  Jeeves's use of a single page with minimal scrolling, added to the convenience of revising a search at the top or bottom of the page, makes it the design of choice.  With Jeeves, there is never an option to click forward for more options.  If you're really determined to see all 8,433 irrelevant websites, there are links to the individual search engines for you to explore at your leisure. 

Jeeves has become a sell-out in his old age; the man is working for The Man.  When asking Jeeves where you can buy an item or comparison shop, he has his favorite merchants who clearly paid for the privilege of being directly linked.  This might bias the butler, but you don't have to stick with his first choice if you're determined to find the mom and pop sites. These days, Jeeves has a version for the kids, special interest searches, and a personalized page featuring "The Daily Answer," a newspaper geared toward your interests and locale.  While you can find thousands of news sites tailored to your requests, only "The Daily Answer" boasts the header, "I have prepared your newspaper, sir [or madam]."  This tongue-in-cheek humor is splashed about the site, adding to its warmth.  For a perfect example, perform a search and ask if Jeeves is gay. 

With Jeeves, you don't have to type in questions to get results, but he makes you feel comfortable doing so.  By asking questions, Jeeves removes peculiarities of quotes and boolean operators.  Even though I'm accustomed to standard search engines, I still prefer Jeeves for his friendliness and easily-readable display of results.  As for my parents, Jeeves is the only place I would refer them for a concise, accessible format.  Cheers to Jeeves, a butler who works for free on no sleep.  Is it possible that a single site shattered the standard method of interacting with search engines? 

The butler did it.

  Dave Berkowitz is the visionary founder of Trafficzine.com, a collegiate entertainment e-zine.  He has recently branched off from serving as Trafficzine's Editor in Chief, Business Manager, and Webmaster to work on projects with Menus.com, Takeoutmusic.com, and most recently Broomecloset.com.  His passion is writing.  Whether it's children's stories, technical reports, reviews, satirical columns, or even cover letters for faxes, he takes great pride in the power of the written word. 

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