Jeeves forced into retirement.

JKomp · #1 (**permalink**) 03-09-2006, 02:40 AM

I heard a very interesting rumour that Jeeves did not go into retirement as willingly as Ask.com suggested. He was, however, paid 4 million British pounds to go quietly and so, thinking of his family, he left with hardly a work - that's what i heard anyway.

Seriously though, don't you think Ask.com looks all the less inviting without the Jeeves guy there - Jeeves gave it individuality, it was unique, now it might as well be any other engine, except the search results aren't up to much.

What do you guys think?

scanmonkey · #2 (**permalink**) 03-09-2006, 05:47 AM

It doesn't matter to me.

**ctabuk** · #3 (**permalink**) 03-09-2006, 07:16 AM

I agree, it's lost its individuality, and that's a shame.

RegDCP · #4 (**permalink**) 03-09-2006, 07:07 PM

I wouldn't go quietly. I would be screaming and laughing all the way to the bank.

**brian.mark** · #5 (**permalink**) 03-09-2006, 07:11 PM

The real story is that a bounty hunter turned him over to a Black Hat, who had him frozen in carbonite. I know it wasn't Matt Cutts who froze him, because I was at dinner with him when that happened.

It hasn't lost its individuality. It has Ajax widgets now. Show me another big name with Ajax. Their Encyclopedia search is cool. The maps product with walking directions (which I used to find dinner with Matt the night Jeeves was frozen) is very unique. Even just a button for dictionary search, which most users don't realize Yahoo and Google have, is very useful and sets them apart. Their unit conversion is also much easier to use than remembering the syntax in Google.

It seems that Google, Yahoo and MSN are overly concerned with making their tabs invisible and just magically working, being the default result when they answer a query. However, Ask.com has moved them to a more visible space to make sure that people use them. It's the specialized markets that will increase the number of queries run (I think it was Comscore that showed number of searches per year is starting to level off), and Ask.com has positioned themselves to take full advantage of those special searches.

Brian.

**brian.mark** · #6 (**permalink**) 03-09-2006, 07:25 PM

If you haven't already listened, here is Diller's keynote at SES. It's a good listen if you're wondering where they are trying to position themselves.

The carbonite reference, in case you missed, can be seen in video here or with pictures here. Of course, just being in carbonite means he can come back. We just need to break in and hit that button...

Brian.

mktplace · #7 (**permalink**) 03-09-2006, 07:27 PM

What I miss is the ability to phrase searches in written english terms, such as "who was the . . ." or "who wrote . . .", but ASK killed that feature long ago, just like Yahoo killed Alta Vistas advanced features, like "this w/5 that" (find the word "this" within 5 words of "that").

Now we are stuck with BILLIONS of search results served - hey! Google == McDonalds. . . maybe we can ses a search engine from the golden arches :)

Keimos · #8 (**permalink**) 03-09-2006, 08:57 PM

Its the only time I have had a Butler or ever will.

Ye, the personality has gone.

Are the feeds Google?

Keimos

scanmonkey · #9 (**permalink**) 03-09-2006, 09:26 PM

Ask is powered by the Ask-owned Teoma, and also owns MyWay.com, iWon and My Search. They use google for the ppc.

**ctabuk** · #10 (**permalink**) 03-10-2006, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scanmonkey

Ask is powered by the Ask-owned Teoma, and also owns MyWay.com, iWon and My Search. They use google for the ppc.

And don't forget www.mamma.com

scanmonkey · #11 (**permalink**) 03-11-2006, 08:14 PM

Ask has their own sponsored listings that places your ads above the Google ads that feed in.

http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com/

I haven't heard any buzz on this. With 7% market share and quality traffic, may be worth looking into.

MikeinFlorida · #12 (**permalink**) 07-21-2006, 11:56 AM

I really liked the butler. I can really use a butler.