SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

October 27, 2009

IAC Sees Profit Despite Declining Revenues for Third Quarter 2009

Ask.com and Citysearch parent company IAC released its third quarter earnings for 2009. Overall revenues came in at $336.6 million down 9% from the same quarter last year. However, profit for the quarter came in at $21.7 million, up from the $14.8 million loss suffered last year. The profits are largely due to the sales of OpenTable and Match Europe.

IAC's Media and Advertising Division, which contains Ask, Dictionary.com and Citysearch (among others), brought in $172.3 million in revenues, down 11% from last year.

Ask.com has seen a decrease in revenue per query. IAC attributed the decline to an improved search experience where searchers are using fewer clicks to find what they need. Another factor was a decrease in cost-per-click.

Citysearch also saw a decrease in revenue per query. This was attributed to a difficult display advertising environment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 29, 2009

Ask.com and Citysearch Parent IAC Revenues Down in Media and Ad Division

IAC released quarterly earnings today and the news is a little dim. The media and advertising division, which includes Ask.com and CItysearch saw Q2 2009 revenues of $168.6 million, down from $186.3 million in Q2 2008, a 9.5% decline.

Revenue per query declined on Ask.com, which IAC is attributing to an improved search experience. They say users are finding what they're looking for with fewer clicks. As a result of all of this, cost per click has declined.

Additionally, Ask.com experienced increased expenses related to their NASCAR partnership as well as increased marketing efforts in the UK. (Jeeves is an expensive mascot.)

Citysearch's revenues are down due to the implementation of a relaunch of the site and new ad serving platform. User registrations and reviews were up for the quarter.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 5, 2009

Ask.com Parent IAC Sees Disappointing Revenues, Plans Vertical Search Strategy

Ask.com parent IAC this week reported a $156.2 million net loss for 2008, or $1.08 loss per share. For Q4 2008, IAC reported $227.4 million in net income, or $1.57 per share. Not counting several write-downs for underperforming assets, adjusted net income came in at $265.5 million for the year, of which $249.6 million was reported in Q4 alone.

Media and advertising revenues, which include Ask.com, Dictionary.com and Citysearch, fell 19 percent year-to-year to $183.7 million. IAC attributes that to a "de-emphasis of relationships with certain partners," as well as fewer overall queries. It was offset by higher revenues per query, however.

The company said search ad prices dropped 8 to 12 percent during the period, and it expects media and ad revenue to decline by more than 20 percent this quarter.

Instead of attempting to take on Google head-on, Ask.com will follow a vertical search strategy, which kicked off last month with deal where Ask will power the search experience on NASCAR.com, provide a NASCAR toolbar, and sponsor a car. IAC plans to roll out from 8 to 10 similar relationships this year.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 1, 2007

Ask.com Carrying IAC Through Tough Times?

Ask.com's strong performance is helping offset a rough quarter on parent IAC, driven largely by a troubled mortgage industry's impact on its real estate and lending businesses.

During a conference call yesterday, IAC officials said the company's media and advertising sector revenue -- which includes Ask.com and Citysearch --increased by 40 percent during the quarter. That segment's operating income before amortization was $27.6 million, about $12 million more than the year-ago period, reports ClickZ News.

During the call, COO Doug Lebda said the company's next move in search "is to rebuild and redeploy the infrastructure of the core search engine." Ask.com is in the midst of that rebuild now, he said, adding that the end result should yield “more relevant, more complete and fresher” search results.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:12 AM | Permalink

May 3, 2007

Ask Brings the Algorithm Mainstream

Ask.com's recent offline advertising campaign is shifting into high gear to build up buzz around Ask's upcoming Edison algorithm, which Ask's Apostolos Gerasoulis spoke about at Search Engine Strategies in New York last month.

In The Algorithm is On The Move, Ask's VP of marketing Greg Ott explains that the campaign, created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, will bring the term "algorithm" to the world outside of SEO. But it will not do it in a way that might hurt people, he says:

"No, the campaign won't go into detail about how an algorithm actually works. We don't want to make people's heads explode. We just want them to know there's something in there – think Intel Inside, Verizon's Network, Dodge's Hemi…heck, even VW's Fahrvergnugen – that's different and working to make search better for you."

The Edison algorithm is expected to combine into one engine the best of Ask's two technologies: the mainly clickthrough-based Direct Hit, acquired in February 2000, and the link analysis-based Teoma, acquired in September 2001.

Ask parent IAC reported its first quarter earnings today, including a 43 percent rise in media and advertising revenue, fueled by growth in search queries and revenue per query.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:21 PM | Permalink

February 6, 2007

IAC Reports Q4 Results

Ask.com parent IAC reported $1.8 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, up 8 percent over the prior year, and $6.3 billion in revenue for the full year, up 15.9 percent. Adjusted net income rose 21.4 percent for the quarter to $211.6 million, and came in at $533.0 million for the year, up 13.3 percent.

Media & Advertising results include IAC Search & Media (including Ask.com, Ask.com UK, Fun Web Products, and network properties), Citysearch and Evite. Revenue in this unit rose 46 percent in the quarter to $159.8 million.

Proprietary traffic in the Media & Advertising unit rose by 64.8 percent, and now constitutes 55.5 percent of all traffic. Traffic to syndicated network sites also rose, by 35.2 percent, and now makes up 44.5 percent of overall traffic.

More details are available at ClickZ News.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:29 AM | Permalink

November 9, 2006

Microsoft, Ask & Fox On Google At Web 2.0

Photo from kennejima at Flickr

Yesterday, Ask and Microsoft talked about taking on Google at the Web 2.0 Summit. But honestly, the highlight for me was the image of Microsoft's Steve Berkowitz sitting next to Ask's Jim Lanzone. Lanzone use to work for Steve, then took over his spot running Ask when Steve left. Both remain good friends, and it was cool to see them up on that panel side by side.

ZDNet covered what they said, plus they have an even better side-by-side photo. Jim's push in taking on Google is that its vulnerability is being distracted by projects other than search. He also puts out this new line I haven't heard used before: "Google is the model T of search. Over time peoples' needs evolve." But I heard you can have search in any color you want, as long as it's black!

Steve talked about consumer experience, the idea that search within IM might be presented differently than within a community site. Plus, he talked about Google's weakness in terms of cultural issues, such as still learning how to act as a public company.

Greg Linden also has a short write-up of the talk, looking at the question about personalized search. Steve wanted to give users complete control of their data. Jim was more pessimistic on personalized search, seemingly in terms of users actually helping with it, since more are "lazy" and don't want to customize things, which is pretty true.

Greg points over at InternetNews, which has another write-up of the talk -- this time with Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie saying in the fight against Google, there is "immense opportunity in the core space" that he's "surprised" Microsoft hasn't branched into. I take core space to mean search.

At PaidContent.org, Ross Levinsohn of Fox Interactive is noted to have said it was "genuine" of Google CEO Eric Schmidt to have visited so quickly after Google snapped YouTube away from a possible purchase by Fox. Plus, he offers soothing words that YouTube would have been "fun" to own but Fox couldn't do it at that price.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:50 AM | Permalink

October 31, 2006

Ask.com's Revenue Increases 62 Percent

IAC posted Q3 earning results, and part of that included results for Ask.com. Bloomberg reports that Ask.com's revenue increased 62-percent but at a cost of $2.1 million. The $2.1 million more than doubled from their previous operating cost.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:02 AM | Permalink

June 12, 2006

Reflecting On Direct Hit, The Google Rival

Perspective: The man who would be Sergey from News.com talks with Gary Culliss, formerly of Direct Hit, on cashing out of search early on. Google and Direct Hit came along at the same time (see Counting Clicks and Looking at Links from me in 1998). Ask Jeeves bought Direct Hit, making the original group involved with it a good chunk of money. But Direct Hit effectively died as a brand and a technology while Google....

I disagree with News.com that in 1998, Google was somehow lumped in with "non-household name" sites while Direct Hit was the shining hope. They both got a lot of attention, but Google very quickly surpassed Direct Hit as the wunderkind to watch. A little bit of history and reflection, in this Q&A.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:19 AM | Permalink

May 17, 2006

Jim Lanzone, CEO Ask.com, Interviewed By CNBC

Jim Lanzone, the new CEO of Ask.com, was recently interviewed on CNBC. You can watch the video interview by clicking here. Jim talks about Ask.com search market share, the recent TV commercials and why Ask.com will continue to grow market share.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:12 AM | Permalink

May 2, 2006

News.com Interviews Ask.com's New CEO, Jim Lanzone

News.com has published an interview with Jim Lanzone, the new CEO of Ask.com. As you know, Jim Lanzone was appointed the CEO spot at Ask.com after Berkowitz left Ask.com for Microsoft. Since then, Jim flew off to SES Italy to give the keynote he was scheduled for months ago. During that time he gave a quick interview at John Battelle's blog. Today, News.com posted a longer interview with Jim Lanzone, asking some tough questions about Ask.com's future, Steve leaving, and competition.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:33 AM | Permalink

Ask.com's IAC Earnings Fall; Not Due to Ask.com

IAC/InterActiveCorp, the company that owns Ask.com, reported earnings today, which showed earnings for IAC have dropped 32% from the previous year. TheStreet.com reports IAC "earned $47.2 million, or 14 cents a share, in the quarter, compared with earnings of $68.9 million, or 19 cents a share, a year ago." Bloomberg has more detail on the earnings report, showing that revenue grew 36% to "$1.55 billion with the purchase of Cornerstone Brands Inc. and Ask.com." But there are still clear concerns with Ask.com's CEO Steve Berkowitz leaving for MSN Search.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:51 AM | Permalink

April 25, 2006

Quick Interview With Jim Lanzone; New CEO Of Ask.com

John Battelle has a quick interview with Jim Lanzone, the new CEO of Ask.com. He asks Jim three questions;

1) How feel? 2) Compete? (In relation to Steve joining MSN) 3) Changes?

Jim answers them, well, like a CEO would. Jim is currently in Italy, getting ready to keynote at SES Italy.

As a side note, I will be posting coverage of SES Toronto at my blog and posting roundups here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:28 AM | Permalink

April 24, 2006

Ask.com Appoints Jim Lanzone CEO

Just days after Ask.com chief Steve Berkowitz jumped ship to Microsoft's MSN, IAC/InterActive Corp. has appointed Vice President of Product Management Jim Lanzone as CEO. Congratulations, Jim!

From the press release announcing the move:

"Jim is one of the most respected leaders in the search industry, having been principally responsible every day for the turnaround of the Ask product and brand over the past several years," said Doug Lebda, IAC President and Chief Operating Officer. "With his vision for the future and successful track record for driving the Ask.com business, he has been and will be the ideal leader for the next stage of the company's growth."

"We have a lot of momentum behind Ask.com," said Mr. Lanzone. "My goal is to keep pushing us forward down the path we're on. With the team we have in place and the backing of IAC/InterActiveCorp, I believe Ask can take a significant piece of the search pie in the years ahead."

Want to comment? Join our forum thread named Jim Lanzone New CEO of Ask.com.

Postscript: John Battelle has a short but nice interview with Jim post-appointment now up here.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:42 AM | Permalink

February 8, 2006

IAC Revenues Up 45%, Turns Profitable

Paid Content reports that Ask Jeeves' parent company IAC reported better revenue and earnings figures for the last quarter of 2005: The company had net income of $113 million, or 33 cents per share, for 4Q05 compared to a loss of $45.9 million, or 13 cents per share, in 4Q04. Revenues were up 45 percent to $1.76 billion from $1.2 billion in 4Q04. Net income for 2005 was $868.2 million compared to $151.8 million in 2004; revenues for the year reached $5.75 billion, up 37 percent from $4.18 billion in 2004. The inclusion of results for Ask Jeeves, acquired last July, drove revenues for the Media & Advertising segment.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 7:04 PM | Permalink

January 24, 2006

When Carl Talked to Barry: Sources Say Time Warner Investor Carl Icahn Has Had Conversations with IAC/InterActive (Ask Jeeves) CEO Barry Diller

According to this Fortune.com story: Time Warner: Is Icahn looking to deal with Diller?, that legenday investor Carl Icahn (controls about 3.1% of outstanding TW shares) and who is preparing to wage a proxy fight for control of the TW Board of Directors has had conversations with IAC/InterActive president, Barry Diller.

From the article: Icahn is also seeking to merge some of Time Warner's businesses -- AOL, the TV networks, and the movie studio -- with an Internet portal. A source says Icahn has had discussions with one or more portals about combining the businesses and then spinning off the publishing and cable operations. And other sources confirm there have been discussions between Icahn's camp and IAC, the Internet company run by Barry Diller [and new owner of Ask Jeeves]. How could Icahn pry those businesses out of Time Warner using IAC, given that TWX is nine times bigger than IAC? That's unclear. It's possible that Diller, Icahn, and [Bruce] Wasserstein could come up with additional partners. [My emphasis]Right now Diller says the discussions are neither hot nor ongoing.

Is a discussion(s) between Icahn and Diller a surprise? Not really.

You probably remember that right before the Google/AOL deal was announced last month, Icahn issued a public statement calling that the Google deal a "disasterous decision," if it, "makes it more difficult in any way or effectively preclude a merger or other type of transaction. In a statement he specifically mentions the names of four companies:

  • IAC/InterActive
  • eBay
  • Yahoo
  • Microsoft

Icahn's statement added: ...a recent Goldman Sachs report concludes, "In contrast to the conventional perspective, we believe that eBay, followed by InterActive Corp, would provide greater incremental benefits to AOL's option value with fewer conflicts of interest than Yahoo! while MSN and Google would provide the least incremental benefits."

Interesting days indeed. Stay tuned.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:56 AM | Permalink

December 19, 2005

Ask Jeeves Plans to Grow Personnel Ranks in 2006

Jonathan Berr, reports in The Street.com story: Diller Asks Jeeves to Grow, that AJ management has been charged by IAC/InterActive CEO, Barry Diller, to grow the company in terms of personnel. AJ's CEO, Steve Berkowitz, tells Berr to look for an increase of about 20% in staffing.

From the article: The expansion comes as Jeeves, which employs 650 workers now, posts solid gains in traffic but remains overshadowed by its more famous and deeper-pocketed rivals. IAC shares are down 10% for the year..."What we really want to do is grow share," says Berkowitz, who has headed Ask Jeeves since 2001, in an interview. "A lot of stuff is going to be happening" next year.

Last week, I posted that new NetRatings numbers showed that AJ had a 77% increase in search volume during a five month period that ended in October.

Want to work at Ask Jeeves? Here's their job openings database.

Thanks to Barry at SER for the news tip.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:18 PM | Permalink

November 1, 2005

Ask Jeeves Acquisition Helps IAC/InterActive Narrow Losses

John and Rafat both point out that the IAC/InterActive quarterly earnings call took place yesterday and the Jeeves acquisition made an impact on the company.

Rafat writes: Ask Jeeves helped narrow the operating loss in the media and advertising business to $900,000 from $12 million. Sales jumped 958% to $83.5 million. Sales at Ask Jeeves rose 15%.

More from the IAC news release: Ask Jeeves? properties increased their share of U.S. search queries to 6.4% in September (source: comScore). Ask Jeeves? decision to significantly reduce the number of sponsored search results on its site is believed to have enhanced the search experience for users...For the full quarter, as compared to its prior year period, Ask Jeeves increased revenue by 15%.

Finally, this Clickz article has a few comments from IAC CEO, Barry Diller: "There's a symbiosis that's natural between a search engine and these fantastic vertical services," Diller said. "As you integrate these into search results, you give consumers a better value-add than they can get anywhere else. It's that differentiation that will allow us to grow share."

Posted by Gary Price at 9:22 PM | Permalink

October 12, 2005

Google and Comcast are in Talks to Acquire Minority Stake in AOL

Here we go again. More news on the AOL/Microsoft/Google story.

The Wall Street Journal has just posted a report that Google and cable television/high-speed Internet giant, Comcast, are in "serious discussions" with AOL (Time Warner) about acquiring a "minority" stake in AOL's portal business (not the dial-up access part).

From the WSJ: How closely Google and Comcast are aligned in the talks isn't clear. Google approached Comcast about participating in a bid for AOL last week, according to a person familiar with the matter. But Google may end up making a bid on its own, another person said.

We've mentioned several times that AOL has yalked to Microsoft about acquiring a minority stake in the company. Actually, the original NY Post story in September noted that AOL had also talked at that point to Google and Yahoo. A few weeks later the Time Warner CEO told the NY Times that he sees AOL has an important asset for his company.

Is any of this surprising? Hardly! It's war out there folks especially between MS and Google.

Btw, if you're thinking the local tv ad buys, an ad on Google could also get you an ad on a Comcast Cable System. Comcast has about 21.5 subscribers. Of course, a new MSN adCenter ad could also get you placement on the many cable systems TW owns and operates. TW Cable has about 16 million subs (analog and digital). Both companies also operate hi-speed net accees, digital phone, and digital recorder services.

Postscript: TheStreet.com has more from the WSJ story including some numbers.

Postcript 2: From Reuters: The talks between AOL, Google and Comcast have progressed over the summer, but one source warned that the discussions were still in early stages and could fall apart.

AOL contacted Comcast earlier this summer and has held separate discussions with Google over potential investments, the sources said.

Google has discussed with AOL interest in AOL's free Web-based services, such as instant messaging and programming. In addition, Google contacted Comcast last week over possible interest in executing a joint investment, one source said.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:31 PM | Permalink

September 15, 2005

Microsoft Talks To Time Warner About Acquiring a Piece of AOL

Via a post in our forums, we learn of a NY Post article: AOL's Time May Be Up, about Microsoft talking with Time Warner about about acquiring a piece of AOL.

Under the plan being considered, Microsoft would pay some money to Time Warner for the AOL stake, leaving the two companies approximately equal partners in the venture.

The article also says that AOL has also talked with Google and Yahoo about acquiring part of the service.

Of course, a partnership between MS and TW/AOL would likely have implications for Google. Why? Google ads are visible on AOL Search results pages. Google could/would loose eyeballs if AOL begins showing advertising from MSN's soon to launch AdCenter service. For site owners, an implication is also that AOL's Google-powered results would be replaced by MSN's own crawler results.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:17 PM | Permalink

September 12, 2005

Ask Jeeves CEO: We Rock, & Will Only Get Better

Many people wondered what fate would befall Ask Jeeves once it was subsumed into Barry Diller's sprawling InterActive Corp online empire. Would the search engine be relegated to second-class status to merely drive traffic to other IAC properties?

Quite the contrary, said Ask Jeeves' CEO Steve Berkowitz in a keynote conversation with Danny Sullivan at the recent Search Engine Strategies show in San Jose. Jeeves' will "shine in search," said Berkowitz, outlining how the company plans to push ahead in the coming years to become even more competitive with Google, Yahoo and the other titans of search. Andrew Goodman recaps the conversation with a liberal dose of his customary acerbic insights in today's SearchDay article, Ask Jeeves CEO: "We Are Focused on Core Search".

Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:29 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2005

IAC/InterActiveCorp Completes Acquisition of Ask Jeeves

According to a news release and a brief item in the Los Angeles Times (reg. required), IAC/InterActiveCorp has completed its acquisition of Ask Jeeves.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:58 AM | Permalink

May 20, 2005

Ask Buys Excite Europe; To Share Excite.com With Infospace

A Reuters article about 10 days ago mentioned that Ask Jeeves was planning on offering new services throughout Western Europe. These plans were made a bit clearer today when Ask Jeeves announced that they have acquired Excite Europe from Tiscali for an undisclosed sum of money.

From the news release: The acquisition of Excite Europe will extend Ask Jeeves' ownership of the Excite brand beyond the United States, giving the Company ownership of Excite's Internet domains throughout Europe as well as control of existing portal offerings in several major European markets including Spain, Italy, France, UK, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

Want to discuss the acquisition? Check out this SEW Forums thread.

In other Ask Jeeves news, the company has agreed in a "comprehensive settlement of litigation" with InfoSpace to share marketing costs and revenue from the Excite.com Web search function.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:36 AM | Permalink

May 9, 2005

European Expansion & More In The Works At Ask Jeeves

Here are a few passages from a new Reuters article that takes a look at Ask Jeeves and their plans for growth as part of IAC.

Key Passages:

"It's kind of like the fourth period for us," [CEO Steve] Berkowitz said, using a sports metaphor for the last quarter in a game. "Come August or September we will have a great story to tell."

Priorities include international expansion, mobile and local search, personalization tools and features that help users zero in on the information they seek. After moving into the search market in Japan and Spain, Ask Jeeves this year plans to tackle the rest of Western Europe.

Berkowitz said Ask Jeeves would likely have some interesting tweaks on Web advertising in the future, but at least for the moment it is standing pat. "Right now, we have a great relationship with Google," Berkowitz said.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:30 AM | Permalink

April 28, 2005

Ask Jeeves Reports Earnings; CEO Comments on Improving User Experience By Reducing Number of Ads on Results Pages

AJ reported their Q1 earnings last night:

+ Q1 2005 net income of $ 18.1 million, or 26 cents a share vs. $13.4 million, or 23 cents a share, in Q1 2004.

+ Revenue more than doubled to $94.9 million from $39.2 million in the year- earlier period. Results for the recent quarter included the acquisition of Interactive Search Holdings Inc., a deal Ask Jeeves closed in May 2004.

+ Google advertising accounted for 70% of Ask Jeeves' revenue.

+ IAC acquisition will close in late Q2 or early Q3.

The DJ article: Ask Jeeves CEO: IAC Purchase Is Important Strategically, has a couple of comments from AJ CEO Steve Berkowitz including one about AJ reducing the number of ads on web results pages.

"We believe this is an important strategic move for Ask Jeeves," he said. " We're joining a company [IAC] with traffic, content and expertise in building brands." Putting Jeeves' search box on IAC's Web properties, which include Expedia, CitySearch, Ticketmaster and Match.com, should significantly boost search traffic, brand awareness and search-ad inventory, Berkowitz said. "That's a quick win," he said in an interview following the call. Berkowitz said that, in a bid to improve the user experience with the search engine, the company began to implement a program in early April to reduce by 31% the number of ads it shows at the top of its results pages. The company's tests show that a smaller number of ads boosts the frequency with which people use the site and aids user retention. As such, Jeeves expects the change to help lift query volumes and ad revenue later in the year.

Want to discuss? Join our forum thread, Ask Jeeves to Reduce Paid Ads.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:45 AM | Permalink

March 28, 2005

Ask Jeeves Still Plans to Expand European HQ in Ireland

A brief article in Ireland's Sunday Business Post reports that despite the IAC acquisition, Ask Jeeves is still planning to expand their European HQ in Ireland and develop services for the Irish market. No specifics were given. The Dublin area is home to the AJ editorial team. About six weeks ago we blogged that Yahoo has plans to add 400 jobs in Ireland.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:27 PM | Permalink

March 24, 2005

Lawsuit Filed in IAC/Ask Jeeves Acquisition

Are legal issues going to cause problems for the IAC/Ask Jeeves deal?

The New York Post reports that an Ask Jeeves shareholder has filed a lawsuit in Deleware saying that AJ execs did not get a fair price for the company.

Ask Jeeves shareholder Richard Wiltsie said in a suit filed yesterday in Delaware Chancery Court that company directors agreed to the deal "without fulfilling their most basic obligation to conduct a full and fair sale process" to get the best price.

More in the article: Suit Says Iac Bid For Ask Jeeves Too Low

Posted by Gary Price at 12:24 PM | Permalink

March 21, 2005

IAC-Ask Jeeves 2005 Vs. IAC-Lycos 1999 & The Need For Being Inclusive

I just listed to the investor webcast about the proposed InterActiveCorp-Ask Jeeves deal. My first thought was how familiar it sounded to proposed (and failed) InterActiveCorp-Lycos deal of 1999, that promised mega cross-promotion but also raised the fear of a lack of diversity in results.

IAC was called USA Network at the time, undergoing a name change later in June 2003. The idea back then was that all the great IAC properties were going to gain from cross-promotion within Lycos search results and vice-versa. My Lycos To Merge With USA Network article from back then revisits this more.

Fast-forward to today and the comment from Ask Jeeves CEO Steve Berkowitz on how the merger of IAB-Ask will allow people to "search, find and complete a task all within the boundaries of one company."

The obvious question is why is the failed deal of back then is suddenly OK today? The model itself, however, never was an issue. Instead, it was one that Lycos shareholders didn't think the deal offered them enough, as the CNNMoney article Lycos, USA call off merger covers more.

What was alarming then from a searcher point of view and remains so today is the idea that people will somehow never be able to escape the clutches of an IAC site in search results. Looking for tickets? Say hello (and only hello) to Ticketmaster! Need to book a trip? Meet Expedia, and forget assuming there are other travel sites.

Both IAC's Diller and Berkowitz have said that any promotion will be in the best interests of the searchers, so the specter that it will be IAC-only content doesn't sound likely. And that's good, because while the Lycos deal never happened, Lycos itself still went down a disappointing route for about two years where any search was dominated by results leading back into content on the Lycos portal. It was a bad experience and cost the search engine many users, leaving it today no longer among the major players.

All the major search engines have been developing and expanding their vertical search properties, of course. And aiming users into their own verticals does make a lot of sense. Ask Jeeves already partners with Citysearch for local results. Using those results for local searches makes just as much sense as Google or Yahoo losing their own local search results.

I think the balance is that in the end, cross-promoting or directly diverting searchers into your vertical/specialty search properties is fine, as long as those are great, inclusive resources. So is it an issue that if you search for something on Google, it might route you into its Froogle shopping search engine, rather than web search results. No, because the experience is better. Froogle still gives you a comprehensive look at listings from across the web.

The same will be true for IAC-Ask Jeeves, if the deal goes through. Anywhere IAC's got some great inclusive verticals, heavy promotion or even invisible tab promotion will be welcomed.

Want to discuss? Visit our forum thread, Barry Diller's IAC To Buy Ask Jeeves.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:51 AM | Permalink

Official: IAC/InterActive Corp To Acquires Ask Jeeves

The story is now crossing the wires that it's official, IAC/InterActive Corp will acquire Ask Jeeves for $1.85 billion in stock. An investor call open to the public is scheduled for 11AM Eastern here. For some additional background, see also our earlier post WSJ: IAC/InterActiveCorp Close to Acquiring Ask Jeeves.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:00 AM | Permalink

February 7, 2005

Ask Jeeves To Buy Bloglines? Postscript, the rumors are confirmed: It's Official: Ask Jeeves Acquires Bloglines.

Various places are reporting that Ask Jeeves is to acquire the Bloglines feed search and reading service:

  • Ask Jeeves Buys Bloglines at Napsterization is apparently the source of the rumor, though neither Ask Jeeves or Bloglines are quoted confirming the acquisition.  
  • Ask Jeeves to buy Bloglines? from News.com revisits the Napsterization post and notes that Ask Jeeves has scheduled an announcement for Monday.

I can confirm that as with the News.com story we've been told Ask Jeeves will be making an announcement today and are preparing a story to release for it. Due to an embargo on the news, we can't discuss what we've been told unless the embargo broken by someone citing an official Ask Jeeves source.

The Napsterization post notes that the newly launched Ask Jeeves Blog has had exclusive links to Top Blogs and Most Popular Blog Links provided by Bloglines, further signs of some type of potential partnership.

If the move happens, it will leave Google as the only major portal not offering some type of feed subscription service. See also:

Want to discuss? Visit our forum thread, Ask Jeeves Reportedly Acquires Bloglines.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:44 AM | Permalink

January 3, 2005

Can Ask Jeeves Move Into The Majors?

Our Ask Jeeves forums moderator Barry Schwartz feels Ask Jeeves has great potential but wondered what it would take to turn that into widespread popularity. So over the holidays, he fired up a discussion called The Little Engine That Could. Check it out for comments from me and other search commentators such as Andrew Goodman and Mike Grehan, as well as from Ask Jeeves senior vice president Jim Lanzone. Feel free to contribute your own thoughts, as well.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:44 PM | Permalink

December 24, 2004

Positive Press for the Butler

The LA Times Chris Gaither looks at Ask Jeeves in the article: Which Search Engine Firm Is Coming Back?

The aim for Ask Jeeves is to become the first stop for Web searches, not just a service to try if Google doesn't deliver the goods, said Chief Executive Steve Berkowitz.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:41 AM | Permalink

September 17, 2004

Jeeves: Profits from New Site Will Go to Red Cross

The "good idea" award of the day goes to AJ.

Ask Jeeves announced this morning that they've teamed up with the Red Cross to raise money for hurricane victims in the Southeast U.S.

>From the news release:

"Ask Jeeves has launched redcross.ask.com, a special version of the company's flagship search site Ask Jeeves (Ask.com), to offer people an easy way to help the Red Cross. Ask Jeeves will donate 100 percent of the profits generated from searches conducted on this site with a minimum donation of $50,000 and a maximum donation of $1 million."

"Redcross.Ask.com features the same searching capabilities, features and experience offered at Ask Jeeves (Ask.com). The only difference is that all profits generated from this site will go to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund..."

Posted by Gary Price at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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