
Smaller companies with their specialized search services are doing things better than Google. It's not scale that's important, but specialization. After all, no one needs 4.7 million links in response to a question about 'New York plumbers'. They just want a few answers that will help them quickly. In December, Ask.com launched Ask City, a search engine combining local information and reviews from sources such as Citysearch, maps, and even tickets. In February, Microsoft bought Medstory, a medical search engine. In April, Steve Case, founder of AOL, began RevolutionHealth.com, a health search engine. And this month, media search company Marchex introduced 100,000 sites that let users search on particular, local topics, such as New York beauty salons. >>