Ask.com has quietly launched a news page called “BigNews” that aggregates top news stories from a variety of sites ranging from The New York Times to small blogs.

The company, whose parent company InterActiveCorp is having troubles of its own over plans to split off its different brands, enters a crowded field with more established news aggregators like Yahoo, Microsoft, and even Google, as well as sites like Digg and Topix.

Ask.com says the news page stories are dynamically generated based on freshness, source authority, social media references, article content, and multimedia availability. You can use a source filter to search for stories based on geographic region and track stories via the site or RSS.