 |
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| Type | Search Engine |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1996 |
| Headquarters | Oakland, California, USA |
| Key people | Garrett Gruener David Warthen (Founders) Jim Safka (CEO) Scott Garrell (President) |
| Industry | Internet |
| Revenue | ▲ $227 Million |
| Parent | InterActive Corp. |
| Website | Ask.com For other countries, see International. |
Ask.com (or Ask Jeeves in the United Kingdom) is a search engine started in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California. The original search engine software was implemented by Gary Chevsky from his own design. Chevsky, Justin Grant, and others built the early AskJeeves.com website around that core engine. Three venture capital firms, Highland Capital Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, and The RODA Group were early investors.[1] Ask.com is currently owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp under the NASDAQ symbol IACI.
Contents |
History
Ask.com was originally known as Ask Jeeves, where "Jeeves" is the name of the "gentleman's personal gentleman", or valet (illustrated by Marcos Sorensen), fetching answers to any question asked. The character was based on Jeeves, Bertie Wooster's fictional valet from the works of P. G. Wodehouse.
The original idea behind Ask Jeeves was to allow users to get answers to questions posed in everyday, natural language, as well as traditional keyword searching. The current Ask.com still supports this, with added support for math, dictionary, and conversion questions.
In 2005, the company announced plans to phase out Jeeves. On February 27, 2006 the character disappeared from Ask.com.
InterActiveCorp owns a variety of sites including country-specific sites for UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, and Spain along with Ask Kids, Teoma (now ExpertRank[2]), Excite, MyWay.com, iWon.com, Bloglines and several others. As of June 5, 2007 Ask.com relaunched with a new, simpler 3D look.[3]
On May 16, 2006, Ask implemented a "Binoculars Site Preview" into its search results. On search results pages, the "Binoculars" let searchers capture a sneak peak of the page they could visit with a mouse-over activating screenshot pop-up.[4][5]
In December 2007, Ask released the AskEraser feature,[6] allowing users to opt-out from tracking of search queries and IP and cookie values. They also vowed to erase this data after 18 months if the AskEraser option is not set. The Center for Democracy and Technology's positive evaluation of AskEraser[7] differed from that of privacy groups including the Electronic Privacy Information Center who found problems such as the requirement that HTTP cookies be enabled for AskEraser to function.[8]
On July 4, 2008 Ask.com announced the acquisition of Lexico Publishing Group, which owns Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com. Lexico Publishing Group had a combined 28 million unique visitors in March[citation needed].
Starting on April 20, 2009, when you visit uk.ask.com in the United Kingdom, or AskJeeves.com in the United States, there is a picture of Jeeves.
International
The company operates localised services for certain countries and its associated languages, including:
- Ask.fr (France)
- Uk.ask.com (Ask Jeeves) (United Kingdom)
- Ask.de (Germany)
- Ask.es (Spain)
- Ask.it (Italy)
- Ask.jp (Japan) (Closed)
- Ask.nl (Netherlands)
Although Ask.gr is active, as of 25 April 2009 it is an independent search engine unrelated to Ask.com, nor there is any localised Ask.com service for Greece.
Corporate details
Ask Jeeves, Inc. stock traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange from July 1999 to July 2005, under the ticker symbol ASKJ. At the time of the IPO in 1999, ASKJ had the third best first-day performance in history[citation needed]. In 2003, it was the 51st best performing stock out of 3229 companies on the NASDAQ[citation needed]. In July 2005, the ASKJ ticker was retired upon the acquisition by IAC/InterActiveCorp, valuing ASKJ at $1.85 billion.
Ask Sponsored Listings
Ask Sponsored Listings is the search engine marketing tool offered to advertisers to increase the visibility of their websites (and subsequent businesses, services, and products) by producing more prominent and frequent search engine listing results.
Marketing and promotion
Information-revolution.org campaign
In early 2007, a number of advertisements appeared on London Underground trains warning commuters that 75% of all the information on the web flowed through one site (implied to be Google), with a URL for www.information-revolution.org[9]. Links also appeared on the homepage of Ask.com and in videos on YouTube. Both the adverts and website were designed in shades of red, white and black associated with anarchist movements. The website was intended to foster debate about the use of search engines, with messages such as "One source isn’t choice". However, when web users found out that the site was actually a form of astroturfing by the marketing company Profero, the blogging arena became overwhelmed with negative messages berating Ask.com for their cynical attempt at marketing. For a short period, doing a search on Ask for "Google" would return the information-revolution site as the first result.[10]
Television advertising
Apostolos Gerasoulis, the co-creator of Ask's Teoma algorithmic search technology, starred in four television advertisements in 2007, extolling the virtues of Ask.com's usefulness for information relevance.[11] Furthermore, there was a Jeeves balloon in the 2001 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
NASCAR sponsorship
On January 14, 2009, Ask.com became the official sponsor of NASCAR driver Bobby Labonte's #96 car. Ask would become the official search engine of NASCAR.[12] Ask.com will be the primary sponsor for the No. 96 for 18 of the first 21 races and has rights to increase this to a total of 29 races this season.[13] The Ask.com car debuted in the 2009 Bud Shootout where it failed to finish the race but subsequently has come back strong placing as high as 5th in the March 1st, 2009 Shelby 427 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.[14] Ask.com's foray into NASCAR is the first instance of its venture into what it calls Super Verticals.[15] A section of the Ask.com website is dedicated to NASCAR[citation needed].
Toolbar
The Ask.com toolbar is a free internet browser toolbar from Ask.com, available for both the Firefox and Internet Explorer web browsers.
Features include the web, image, news, and dictionary searches, the ability to save and share web pages and images through MyStuff, personalizable news feeds (ranging from local to international), weather forecasts, stock portfolios, maps, and related services.
The toolbar is often installed with another program. The user can uncheck a box during the installation of the original program if the user does not want the toolbar installed.
The Ask toolbar can be uninstalled from Firefox/Internet Explorer through the Windows control panel. Ask.com remains the default search engine until the user changes the setting. The Ask.com toolbar is incompatible with Kaspersky Internet Security 2009; presence of the toolbar causes license key corruption. [16]
References
- ^ Ask Jeeves, Inc. initial public offering prospectus
- ^ Ask.com Search Technology. Retrieved on May 11, 2009.
- ^ Major Relaunch For Ask: Ask3D, Techcrunch, 2007-06-04. Retrieved on June 5, 2007
- ^ United States Patent Database, US Patents, 2006-06-16. Retrieved on May 16, 2006
- ^ Ask Binoculars Improving Search Results?, Ask.com, 2006-06-16. Retrieved on May 16, 2006
- ^ Ask.com Takes the Lead on Log Retention; Microsoft and Yahoo! Follow, eff.org, Retrieved on 2008-01-03
- ^ "Letter to U.S. Federal Trade Commission" (PDF). Center for Democracy and Technology. January 23, 2008. http://www.cdt.org/privacy/20080123_FTC_Ask.pdf. Retrieved 2008-03-10.
- ^ "Does AskEraser Really Erase?". Electronic Privacy Information Center. http://epic.org/privacy/ask/default.html. Retrieved 2008-03-10.
- ^ Information Revolution
- ^ "Ask’s Anti-Google Campaign". outer-court.com. 2007-03-18. http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-03-18-n76.html. Retrieved 2007-03-28.
- ^ "About Ask.com: TV Spots". http://about.ask.com/docs/about/televisionads.shtml. Retrieved 2007-04-25.
- ^ http://www.nascar.com/2009/news/headlines/cup/01/14/ask.com.partnerships/index.html
- ^ http://bbs.cid.cn.nascar.com/2009/news/headlines/cup/01/13/blabonte.hof.racing/index.html
- ^ http://www.ask.com/nascar/2009-Shelby-427-race#results
- ^ http://searchengineland.com/askcom-partners-with-nascar-says-super-vertical-will-put-it-back-in-search-race-16143
- ^ support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208280158
External links
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