Ask CEO Safka to Depart
May 12, 2009 at 6:53pm ET by Greg Sterling
According to the Wall Street Journal, Ask.com CEO Jim Safka is leaving the company. He will become the head of Chegg, Inc., which rents textbooks to students online. The decision to leave is apparently Safka's, for personal reasons. Longtime IAC executive Scott Garell will take over as "President of Ask Networks."
In its most recent earnings report, IAC's "media & advertising" business (which reflects search revenues) was off 22 percent compared with the same period a year ago. Ask's market share, as the WSJ article points out, has remained largely flat during Safka's time at the helm, [...]
Filed in: Ask: Ask 3D, Ask: Business Issues, Ask: General, Top News
All Things D: The Search Edition
May 29, 2008 at 9:32am ET by Greg Sterling
There's a ton of search-related news and intrigue coming out of the Dow Jones "All Things D" conference in Southern California. Let's start with the ridiculous remark from IAC's chief Barry Diller that "Google is irrelevant to us." That's only true if Diller doesn't care about search revenue. Google is essentially the source of that revenue for IAC.
He also reportedly said, "I believe our product is in most respects better than Google," and that he thinks Google's dominance cannot last indefinitely in search: "At some point Google will not live ever after with 60 or 90 percent of market."
A [...]
Filed in: Ask: Ask 3D, Business Issues: General, Facebook, Google: Critics, Google: General, Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal, Microsoft: Business Issues, Yahoo: Business Issues, Yahoo: General, Yahoo: Partnerships, Yahoo: Search Ads
Obit: A West Coast Digerati Deadpools Ask.com
Mar 5, 2008 at 9:58am ET by Danny Sullivan
Goodbye, Ask.com. You caught my eye back in 1997 as an unusual
meta search engine that asked questions to get answers. By 1998, I counted
you alongside Google and Direct Hit as shining examples of what to watch in
search. You'd dumped depending on others for search results and started
providing answers using your own human editors. I hung with you over the years,
cheered when you acquired the impressive Teoma crawler in 2001. I was thrilled
when you alone among the major search engines dumped the traditional search
metaphor for the Ask3D
view last year. Now you're just for women, apparently. [...]
Filed in: Ask: Ask 3D, Ask: Business Issues, Ask: General, Stats: History
Six Minutes With Former Ask CEO Jim Lanzone
Feb 22, 2008 at 11:43am ET by Greg Sterling
AllThingD's Kara Swisher does a wide ranging video interview with former Ask CEO Jim Lanzone. Among other things, Swisher and Lanzone discuss "the future of search" (at only the very highest level, however).
Lanzone discusses Ask3D and the general trend toward introducing more structured and multimedia content into search results, and the movement away from the proverbial "10 blue links."
Regarding the Microsoft-Yahoo merger, Lanzone says it will benefit smaller search players in the market. He asserts that Microsoft's cash might be able to fund greater innovation at Yahoo rather than shut [...]
Filed in: Ask: Ask 3D, Ask: Employees
IAC Troubles, Ask.com, And Post-Yahoo Search Share
Feb 4, 2008 at 9:35am ET by Greg Sterling
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal both report on the legal battle for control of IAC's board and thus the company itself. It's not pretty, and IAC claims that it's impeding the company's ability to effectively operate.
The legal fight arguably prevents IAC from making any sort of overture (so to speak) toward Yahoo, although it's a much smaller company ($7.4 billion vs. $38 billion). Another issue to consider is the potential impact on Ask.com of a post-Micro-Hoo search landscape.
Ask and AOL jockey back and forth for the number four and five positions in the search rankings. A com [...]
Filed in: Ask: Ask 3D, Ask: Business Issues, Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal, Microsoft: Business Issues, Yahoo: Business Issues
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