Ask.com shuts down after over 25 years
The turn down web page says, "Jeeves’ spirit endures."
Topic: Indian Airlines
Publishers report ‘negligible’ traffic impact of Google AI Overviews
Dotdash Meredith and Ziff Davis tell shareholders that they haven't seen any significant traffic changes due to Google's AI Overviews.
Nextdoor in new deals with directories to monetize local search
Nextdoor is trying to ramp up revenue growth as it heads toward a likely IPO.
Google brings local lead generation to Google Assistant and Google Home
The company taps HomeAdvisor and Porch to provide local contractors through a multistep voice-driven interaction.
Google home service ads come to the East Coast & open up to more service categories
The local home services ad product is now available in 5 metro areas in the US.
Yahoo’s Mayer: “Our Search Share Has Declined” But She’s Optimistic About Opportunities
Yahoo is making progress in a number of product areas under CEO Marissa Mayer, but search isn’t one of them — a fact that Mayer herself admitted during today’s Q3 earnings call. Yahoo’s US share of the search market was just 11.3 percent in September, according to just-released comScore numbers — that ties Yahoo’s all-time […]
Ask CEO Doug Leeds Proclaims Search Wars “Over,” Says Yahoo Can Be Great Again
Ask.com has 3.5 percent of the search market according to comScore. Ask.com CEO Doug Leeds told Bloomberg that number may seem small but it makes his site the seventh largest in the US, “with 100 million people every month.” Rather than claiming that his search market share will continue to grow, Leeds proclaims that “the search wars […]
Facebook Ranked #3, Google #5 For Best Places To Work
Glassdoor.com, a job and career web site, announced their annual best places to work in 2012 study. Facebook tops Google with the number 3 listing, whereas Google moved up for their 2011 spot of 30 to number 5. In 2010 Google was rated number 14, and in 2009 Google was rated number 7. Glassdoor.com developed […]
Report: IAC Is Google’s Biggest Ad Spender, According to Kantar
Kantar Media is taking a stab at estimating advertiser spend on Google, and a new report it produced for AdAge shows IAC/InterActiveCorp spent $174 million on paid search ads in the first three quarters of the year. IAC is, of course, the parent company of Ask.com, Match.com and the Newsweek Daily Beast, among many other […]
Ask.com Returns To TV With Spot Emphasizing Q&A
Ask.com has a long history in TV advertising; some of it has been entertaining and some of it controversial. But the IAC-owned search engine was on a TV hiatus of sorts during the past couple of years. Now, according to AdWeek, the company is running new TV ads in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The […]
Ask.com Celebrates 15th Birthday
Ask.com the social search/Q&A engine is 15 years old. Founded in 1996 as Ask Jeeves by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen the company has launched a special social site to celebrate its birthday and review events of the past 15 years — mylast15.com. Here’s a brief recent history of Ask: July 1999: Ask Jeeves goes […]
Mapquest Takes On Google Navigation With Free Android App
Following the success of its iPhone app, Mapquest has released a free, voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation app for Android handsets. The new app differs in a couple ways from its older iPhone sibling. Most significantly it takes advantage of Android’s speech capabilities and includes OpenStreetMap data, which allows the app to be used outside the US […]
Ask.com To Focus On Q&A Search, End Web Crawling
Talk about getting back to your roots. Ask.com, which originally used humans to find answers to questions, is going further back to its origins by abandoning its web crawling technology. The Need, Or Not, To Crawl Search engines like Google and Bing try to have answers to anything someone might search for by “crawling” the […]
Ask.com Sends Dying Bloglines To Its Friends At MerchantCircle
Die-hard Bloglines users are surely happy to learn today that the IAC-owned RSS reader isn’t being shutdown, after all. Bloglines accounts are still active with all subscription-related data intact. Less than two months ago, Ask.com — currently in charge of Bloglines — said the service would be shuttered in a matter of weeks. Today, Ask […]
Diller: Ask.com Was The Little Search Engine That Couldn’t
At one time, IAC’s CEO Barry Diller thought his Ask.com search engine could take on Google. But Diller effectively threw in the towel yesterday on an investors call. Diller downplayed Ask.com’s role in the over IAC company but said he ultimately failed at thinking Ask.com can compete with Google. Diller said: But one thing I […]
Ask Comes Full Circle With “Q&A” Offering
As Matt posted earlier this evening Ask is in beta on a new approach to search, or perhaps more accurately: a return to an earlier approach but with greater experience and sophistication. The IAC-owned company is returning, conceptually, to its origins as a question & answer engine, when human editors were involved. This has been […]
Ask to Introduce New Q&A Engine Soon
Ask.com was arguably the original Q&A engine. Now the site is seeking to introduce a new product, which leverages both its search assets and the community. We were approached but we’ve yet to formally speak to someone from IAC about the forthcoming launch. However, Silicon Alley Insider today exposes the PR email outlining the plan: […]
IAC Q4 Earnings: Search Growth 3% But Takes $1 Billion Loss On Ask.com
IAC, the parent company of Ask.com, reported their fourth quarter earnings today and overall, it was a good quarter of revenue for IAC, being up 5% year-over-year in revenue. On the income side of the balance sheet, IAC was up 47% from Q4 of 2008 to Q4 2009. Search, which includes Ask.com, was up 3% […]
comScore: Bing Share Up – Will It Overtake Yahoo? Plus, Ask.com Sale Speculation Returns
According to comScore’s December search numbers (now being circulated by various financial analysts), Ask is down slightly, so are AOL and Yahoo. Google and Bing are up. Here are the new comScore figures, which will be formally released today or Monday: Google: 65.7 percent Yahoo: 17.3 percent Bing: 10.7 percent Ask: 3.7 percent AOL: 2.6 […]
IAC’s Diller Decides Not To Sell Ask.com
The mercurial Barry Diller, CEO of IAC, decided apparently that he didn’t want to sell Ask. During the Q3 earnings call Reuters reported that Diller said the following: “We’ve been asked a lot whether we’re open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes,” Diller said. “And, it is unlikely that […]
MicroHoo-Ying Eyeing Global Reach, What About Ask?
There’s a report from Reuters this morning that Microsoft and Yahoo are considering expanding the scope of their search deal “outside the United States”: Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Thursday the company could look to extend its search engine partnership with Yahoo outside the United States, if it gets regulatory approval. Wasn’t that […]
Search In Pictures: Bing Pong, Ask 3D Signatures & Yahoo Brands
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
Ask.com’s IAC Revenue Drops 10%, Revenue Per Query Down
Ask.com’s parent company reported second quarter earnings, which showed an overall decline in revenue of 4% for the overall company, but dipped 10% in the media and advertising category, the category Ask.com fits into. IAC said revenue per query declined because of an “improved experience on Ask.com following its relaunch in October.” The relaunch has […]
Ask CEO Safka to Depart
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 […]
Google Sued For Infringing On All Texas Trademark Owners
Eric Goldman reports that Google was sued yesterday by FBX for infringing on the trademarks of all of the Texas trademark owners. Yes, this is a massive class action suit, not just against Google but also against YouTube, AOL, Tuner, MySpace and IAC. We have had many suits filed against Google over trademark infringement in […]
Search Biz: AOL Spin Off, Yahoo Layoffs, Google Losses, IAC Spoons And Pines For AOL
The biggest Search Biz news of the week is about AOL’s forthcoming spin off and related personnel moves. Time Warner yesterday announced quarterly revenues and a whopping $16 billion loss (not the largest in the company’s history). For its part, AOL’s ad revenues fell roughly 20 percent to $867 million from $1.13 billion the previous […]
IAC Buys UrbanSpoon
IAC has acquired UrbanSpoon, the restaurant review site that has an incredible popular iPhone application, amongst Facebook widgets and other widgets. The news is now over Techmeme that the company has been acquired for somewhere in the millions of dollar range. IAC has not disclosed the acquisition price. The company was set up by Ethan […]
Ask.com Shows Display Ads On Home Page
If you visit Ask.com today, you may notice that they have ads for their sister sites. Here is a picture of Ask.com with a Match.com ad, an IAC property. Currently, Ask.com is the only “search engine” to have display ads on their search home page. I’ll leave my negative thoughts to myself this time.
IAC Monetizes Bloglines With Display Ads
Bloglines, a popular web-based RSS reader, announced that they have begun testing the waters of monetizing the service with display ads. If you login to the Bloglines start page, you may see an ad on the right hand side. In addition, if you conduct a search in Bloglines, you may see ads show up on […]
Serial Clickfraud Lawsuit Firm Strikes Again, This Time At Citysearch
Click fraud lawsuit targets IAC’s Citysearch from News.com reports the law firm of Kabateck Brown Kellner is targeting IAC’s Citysearch.com for allegedly “defrauding its advertising customers of millions of dollars” by “turning a blind eye to click fraud” and actually “encouraging” the click fraud. This Los Angeles-based law firm has won suits against Google and […]
Ask.com Buying Lexico, Owner Of Dictionary.com
In a move that is interesting and perhaps even surprising for several reasons, IAC/Ask is buying Lexico Publishing Group, which owns and operates “iconic” domains Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com. These sites get most of their traffic through direct navigation and will increase Ask’s reach by 145 million unduplicated users (or 11 percent). Ask is saying […]
Microsoft Willing To Raise Bid, But How Much Is Enough?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft’s directors are collectively willing to authorize the company to raise its bid for Yahoo to up to $33 per share but perhaps not to the levels that Yahoo has signaled it wants to be acquired. If such a sweetened bid did occur it would put further pressure […]
IAC To Launch Startups, Take A Demographic Approach To Search
The Wall Street Journal reports that IAC, parent of Ask, is preparing to launch a number of startups after its spin off of some of its traditional media properties. Among the new sites is RushmoreDrive, a niche search engine targeting African Americans. What’s interesting is its demographic approach to search.
Search Biz: Google’s Project Management Tools, Iowa Seeks Microsoft, & More
Click Forensics gets $10 million in funding. An early Googler donates money to San Jose State. The fight to control IAC carries on. Disney doesn’t want AOL. Yahoo and Microsoft do research labs in Israel. A glimpse into the internal tools Google uses to manage products, and Iowa passes tax breaks in hopes of getting […]
Search Biz: Google Stock Hits New Low; News Corp Says No On Yahoo
Today in Search Biz: News Corp isn’t throwing Yahoo a life preserver to fend off Microsoft. Ask loses a (small) paid search partner and gets competition for those women it now says it’s not really that focused on (sort of). Google’s stock hits a new low, but will it plunge below $400? Facebook founder Mark […]
Obit: A West Coast Digerati Deadpools Ask.com
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 […]
Ask.com Calls Dumping Teoma Search Technology Rumors False
Last week, IAC Ready To Drop Ask.com Search Technology & Partner With Google? covered rumors that Ask might be dumping its own “Teoma” search technology. Just an hour ago, I received an official statement from Ask.com saying the rumor is false. Nicholas Graham, a spokesperson from Ask.com, told me: I wanted to get back to […]
IAC Troubles, Ask.com, And Post-Yahoo Search Share
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 […]
Microsoft Makes $45 Billion Bid To Buy Yahoo
Microsoft is to bid $31 per share to Yahoo’s board of directors to purchase the company, a deal potentially worth $45 billion. Below, more details, some history, and analysis. We’ll also keep updating this story, and we’ll have a separate post linked from this when the conference call starts. The Proposal Microsoft has proposed to Yahoo’s Board Of Directors that Microsoft […]
Byzantine Legal Fight For Control Of Ask.com Parent IAC
The Wall Street Journal covers the “open warfare” between IAC CEO Barry Diller and Liberty Media, one of its largest backers and investors. Liberty Chairman John Malone has grown increasingly frustrated with IAC’s financial and stock performance and Diller himself. Diller has control of the company through a Byzantine procedural agreement that allows him to […]