Yahoo isn't a search company, according to CEO Carol Bartz. It isn't interested in fighting the behemoth that is Google. That war is far too costly to wage.

Is Ask.com giving up on the algorithmic search battle? Yes, but that's not the whole story. Company President Doug Leeds explains why human-assisted question-and-answer search is the future.

Remember Ask.com, that pre-Google site with the cute butler logo, Jeeves? Well, it's about to relaunch with a new ethos: answering questions, not keywords.

Are you more likely to spoon or to be spooned? Are alien abductions fake or real? How good are you at catching fly balls? Hunch.com wants to know, not for its own benefit, but for yours. Launched today, Hunch helps users find information and make decisions by comparing what it knows about them to what it knows about others like them. Hence all the questions: The more Hunch knows about your preferences, style, likes, dislikes, etc., the better recommendations it can make regarding which magazine you should read, which 1980s cult film you might enjoy or what kind of dog you should own.