AskCity launches

Filed in Local Search by Matt McGee on December 3, 2006 • 0 Comments

The new local search service from Ask.com launches Monday at http://city.ask.com/. As of this moment, the site isn’t public yet — it’s asking me for a password if I want to poke around. (it’s 1:20 am here in Chicago and I’m still on west coast time….)

Kevin Newcomb, however, spills some of the beans in a ClickZ article after speaking with Ask’s Ryan Massie. What we learn from the article:

AskCity will launch without ads, but ads may be added later. (Count on it.)
Only about 20% of the links on AskCity will go to other IAC-owned sites. (IAC is the parent company of Ask, CitySearch, etc.)
CitySearch will not be phased out, according to Ask’s Jim Lanzone.
AskCity purposely de-emphasizes its mapping tool as a way to differentiate itself from other local sites.

I’m curious to see this and hope to get some time while here in Chicago to look at the new site.