this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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Before Smartphones, an Army of Real People Helped You Find Stuff on Google (www.wired.com)
submitted 4 months ago by jeffw to c/technology
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[–] IphtashuFitz 14 points 4 months ago

Ask Jeeves was a “question answering service” back then. They had a staff of human editors who curated answers to popular questions. Nothing they answered back then was done via search.

Source: I worked for a search engine startup in the 90’s that was acquired by Ask Jeeves when they realized they needed a true search technology since human editing wasn’t scalable.