• the only one: AskJeeves

  no real NLP, but human editors compiled popular queries and answers

• Microsoft Longhorn (AskMSR), REAL NLP:

  • natural language questions (like: "Who killed Abraham Lincoln?")

  • giving THE answer: "John Wilkes Booth" (first)

  • searching own PC first

  • finding answers by a rewrite question2answer method:
    • -> "... killed Abraham Lincoln" OR "Abraham Lincoln was killed by ..."

    • and doing string search on expected answers

  • pragmatic & realistic approach - no academic dreams like SW