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 […]
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 […]
Sigh. Reading Stephen Ballmer’s latest "rally the troops" memo over yet another Microsoft reorganization, I just want to scream at the man and the company in general that they’ll never win at search if they don’t get it through their heads that it’s not about selling ads, but serving searchers.
As SS Yahoo appears to be sinking, let me be the contrarian about her future. I admit, I find it as hard to believe as anyone that Yahoo has much life left in it after all the executive departures this week, plus the latest news of Delicious founder Joshua Schacter going. But since Yahoo’s leadership […]
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 […]
The anticipated Microsoft reorganization is now happening. We wrote about it previously with respect to the ouster of Steve Berkowitz. Some are speculating that these changes anticipate a future integration of Yahoo into the company. But Mary Jo Foley says they were in motion well before the announced bid. (NOTE: See Official: Microsoft Management Reorg […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
According to CNET, Microsoft isn’t waiting for the Yahoo acquisition to happen before it reorganizes. Several internal groups are slated for leadership change, and Steve Berkowitz, former Ask.com CEO and current SVP of Online Services for Microsoft, is apparently part of the changes.
IAC, Ask.com’s parent company, has announced that Jim Lanzone, the CEO of Ask.com, will be replaced immediately by Jim Safka as the new CEO of Ask.com. Safka was previously the CEO of Match.com, IAC’s online dating company, from 2004 to 2007. He will also retain his job at as CEO of Primal Ventures, an investment […]
I Fought the Law from the New York Times tells the story of how Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone abandoned pursuing a legal degree and learned his true passion was for internet companies. Lanzone attended Emory University’s School of Law in Atlanta. He then worked for Justice Hugh P. Thompson at the Supreme Court of Georgia, […]
Microsoft announced earlier today that it had acquired six-year-old European mobile ad platform company ScreenTonic. Last February, Microsoft acquired European mobile search provider MotionBridge. This past March Microsoft bought Tellme. Thus, the company is putting together an impressive suite of mobile assets for both consumers and carriers.
Gary Price reports that Portfolio.com released a database of top executives profiles, and part of that list includes many of the top executives from our beloved search engines. Here are quick links to some of those profiles of interest:
Microsoft’s top search executive leaving company from the Seattle PI covers Microsoft’s Christopher Payne reportedly leaving the company. The AP also reports similar news from its sources. Payne took over search efforts at Microsoft back in 2003. He oversaw what I’d call Microsoft’s "second era" of search, that of developing a crawler-based search engine to […]
Hooked on Google from the San Jose Mercury News revisits a theme from Microsoft that I’ve reported to readers over the years. That’s how Microsoft’s failure to beat Google in search — despite millions in spending — gets the "it’s early days, give us time" defense from Microsoft. The defense is partially true, but it […]
The NY Times has a great write up named Looking for a Gambit to Win at Google’s Game. In the article, Steve Berkowitz, old CEO of Ask.com, now in charge of Microsoft’s online services unit, describes the differences between running Ask.com and Microsoft. He calls Ask.com a row boat, and Microsoft a cruise ship. Mr. […]