Reno - 1:50 am on Mar 4, 2003 (gmt 0)

The new look is fine as far as it goes -- neither better nor worse than Google. But of course people don't use G because it looks cool (it doesn't), but rather because it brings back results that most users find to be useful.

In my opinion, to be a truly major contender ATW will have to make a Herculean effort to index *all* the relevant sites that they come across, whether or not people pay them, and refine their (already pretty good) search technology to bring back results that are even more targeted than Google. Those of you who know this stuff can likely see a scenario where that can happen. I just use their service, but do not work in the field.

Certainly they could have some kind of paid enhancements to make those results stand out -- as an income producing model -- but anything less than a full indexing of the available important information on the WWW will keep them at best a second choice service. Right now, their url submit page is clearly "pay to play", and that won't cut it in the big leagues where most people want specific information, not results based on the $$ paid.