Ask.com: The better marketer

Take a look:

ClickZ News - Yahoo Shows Off Panama
PC World - Yahoo Opens Access to Panama
SEW Blog - Ask.com: The Other Search Engine

Does anyone see a dichotomy here? What we have is a whole bunch of people that want to throw Google off of their thrown. We've got different news stories, all asking the question, "Is this going to be the thing that enables [Insert Company Name] to catch up with Google?"

However, the story about Ask.com is very interesting, because it shows a company that seems to be openly embracing its standing in the marketplace, behind Google and the other search engines out there. They're not content with their standing, but in order to move up in the world of search, they are openly acknowledging that they are not number one, or even number two for that matter. Perhaps this line of thinking will help them better identify with the majority of users out there, who also designated Google as the SE to beat. Ask.com seems to further feed this line of thinking by advertising on YouTube, a Google-owned property.

Yahoo, on the other hand, like Microsoft, is continuing with the more traditional approach of pointing people to itself as the best search engine out there. Of course - why wouldn't they want people to think they are the best? The problem with that is, most people don't. They've got a larger network, perhaps more tools, and a different ad platform now, but everyone still says Google is better. That perception doesn't seem to be changing soon, either.

This is all to say that, while Yahoo and Microsoft seem to be taking the old, traditional approach to marketing themselves, it doesn't seem to be working, and Ask.com's approach seems to be more in line with the users out there.