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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Foundation date | 1996 |
| Owner | IAC |
| Website | Ask.com |
| Alexa rank |  50 (February 2013[update])[1] |
Ask.com (originally known as Ask Jeeves) is a question answering-focused web search engine founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California. The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky from his own design. Warthen, Chevsky, Justin Grant, and others built the early AskJeeves.com website around that core engine. In late 2010, facing insurmountable competition from Google, the company outsourced its web search technology and returned to its roots as a question and answer site.[2] Douglas Leeds was elevated from president to CEO in 2010.[3]
Ask.com is noted for a malware toolbar that can be surreptitiously bundled in with legitimate program installations, and which generally cannot be removed from most common browsers once installed.[4][5][6]
Three venture capital firms, Highland Capital Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, and The RODA Group were early investors.[7] Ask.com is currently owned by InterActiveCorp under the NASDAQ symbol IACI.
Contents |
History[edit]
Ask.com was originally known as Ask Jeeves, "Jeeves" being the name of a "gentleman's personal gentleman", or valet, fetching answers to any question asked. The character was based on Bertie Wooster's valet Jeeves, in the fictional 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 by 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 and on February 27, 2006, the character disappeared from Ask.com. He was stated to be "going in to retirement." However the U.K./Ireland edition of the website prominently brought the character back in 2009.
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[8]) and several others. On June 5, 2007 Ask.com relaunched with a 3D look.[9]
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 peek of the page they could visit with a mouse-over activating screenshot pop-up.[10]
In December 2007, Ask released the AskEraser feature,[11] 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. HTTP cookies must be enabled for AskEraser to function.[12][13]
On July 4, 2008 InterActiveCorperation announced the acquisition of Lexico Publishing Group, which owns Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com.[14][15]
On July 26, 2010, Ask.com released a closed-beta Q&A service. The service was released to the public on July 29, 2010.[16] Ask.com launched its mobile Q&A app for the iPhone in late 2010.[17]
Ask.com now reaches 100 million global users per month[18] through its website with more than 2 million downloads[19] of its flagship mobile app. The company has also released additional apps spun out of its Q&A experience, including PollRoll[20] in 2012 and Ask Around[21] in 2011.
Corporate details[edit]
Ask Jeeves, Inc. stock traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange from July 1999 to July 2005, under the ticker symbol ASKJ. In July 2005, the ASKJ ticker was retired upon the acquisition by InterActiveCorp, valuing ASKJ at US$1.85 billion.
In 2012, Ask.com made two acquisitions as part of a larger strategy to offer more content on the Ask.com website. On July 2, 2012 Ask.com purchased content discovery start-up,[22] nRelate, for an undisclosed amount. That was followed by the company's acquisition of expert advice and information site About.com,[23] which closed in September 2012.
Ask Sponsored Listings[edit]
Formerly the direct sales engine for Ask.com, Ask Sponsored Listings is no longer available, merging with Sendori,[24] an operating business of IAC, in 2011.
Ask Toolbar controversy[edit]
The Ask Toolbar is a web-browser add-on that can appear as an extra bar added to the browser's window and/or menu. As it cannot be removed by using built-in OS uninstall functionalities, it is often referred to as malware. It is often installed during the installation of partner software, including Oracle Java. As an operating business of InterActiveCorp,[25] Ask Partner Network has entered into partnerships with some software security vendors, whereby they distribute the toolbar alongside their software.[26] Installer packages for partner companies have an option (opt-out) to install the Ask Toolbar and/or change the user's default browser home page to Ask.com.
Ask.com and its parent company [IAC] have been heavily criticized due to malware-like features of the toolbar, and also due to the opt-out, rather than opt-in nature of the bundle installation process.[27]
Marketing and promotion[edit]
Advertising[edit]
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.[28] There was a Jeeves balloon in the 2001 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
After a hiatus from mass consumer marketing, Ask returned to TV advertising[29] in the fall of 2011 after re-focusing its site on questions and answers. Instead of national advertising, Ask focused on local markets with basic creative. In the summer of 2012, Ask launched a national cinema campaign,[30] and along with other out-of-home tactics in certain markets such as New York[31] and Seattle.
As part of a Seattle-based local market effort, Ask.com launched its “You Asked We Answered”[32] campaign in 2012, in which the company “answered” residents’ top complaints about living in their city, including easing morning commutes and stadium traffic, as well as keeping the local Parks & Rec department wading pools open.
NASCAR sponsorship[edit]
On January 14, 2009, Ask.com became the official sponsor of NASCAR driver Bobby Labonte's No.96 car. Ask would become the official search engine of NASCAR.[33] 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.[34] 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 1, 2009 Shelby 427 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.[35] Ask.com's foray into NASCAR is the first instance of its venture into what it calls Super Verticals.[36]
Search engine shut-down[edit]
In 2010 Ask.com abandoned the search industry, with the loss of 130 search engineering jobs, because it could not compete against more popular search engines such as Google. It reverted to being essentially a question-and-answer repository, utilizing its extensive history of archived query data to search sites that provide answers to questions people have. To avoid a situation in which no answers were available from its own resources, the company outsourced to Google the comprehensive web search matches that it used to gather itself.[37][38]
References[edit]
- ^ "Ask.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2013-02-02.
- ^ Kopytoff, Verne G. (November 9, 2010). "Ask.com Giving Up Search to Return to Q-and-A Service". The New York Times.
- ^ "IAC Management". IAC.
- ^ Mozilla Support website posting, "Can not remove "Ask Toolbar" from FF in windows 7", accessed on March 17, 2013
- ^ Spyware, viruses, & security forum: The effing ASK toolbar won't go away! by: porthome October 29, 2012 10:05 AM PDT, accessed on March 18, 2013
- ^ Ghacks.com, Ask Toolbar Removal, How To Uninstall By Martin Brinkmann on March 4, 2011, accessed on March 18, 2013
- ^ "Ask Jeeves, Inc. initial public offering prospectus". Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
- ^ 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, 2006-06-16. Retrieved on May 16, 2006
- ^ Ask.com Takes the Lead on Log Retention; Microsoft and Yahoo! Follow, eff.org, Retrieved on January 3, 2008
- ^ "Does AskEraser Really Erase?". Electronic Privacy Information Center. Archived from the original on March 08 2008. Retrieved March 10, 2008.
- ^ "Letter to U.S. Federal Trade Commission" (PDF). Center for Democracy and Technology. January 23, 2008. Retrieved March 10, 2008.
- ^ Auchard, Eric (July 3, 2008). "Ask.com closes acquisition of Dictionary.com". Reuters.
- ^ "Ask.com closes Dictionary.com deal". CNet. July 4, 2008.
- ^ "Ask.com Q&A Service Drops July 29th". Softpedia. July 27, 2010.
- ^ Christian, Zibreg (September 24, 2010). "Ask.com has an iPhone app that lets you ask and get local answers". Geek.com.
- ^ Sterling, Greg. "Ask CEO Doug Leeds Proclaims Search Wars "Over," Says Yahoo Can Be Great Again". Search Engine Land. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
- ^ Knight, Kristina. "How Tina Fey inspired Ask.com to change". BizReport. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
- ^ Spirrison, Brad. "Ask.com hits the polls with Pollroll". Appolicious. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
- ^ Perez, Marin. "Ask Around app brings location-based conversations to iPhone". Into Mobile. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
- ^ de Senerpont Domis, Olaf. "Q&A with Ask.com's CEO and nRelate's Founder". The Deal Pipeline. Retrieved 23 October 2012.
- ^ Stewart, Christopher. "Times Co. Sells About.com for $300 Million". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 23 October 2012.
- ^ "Ask Sponsored Listings is now Sedori". Sendori. Retrieved 29 October 2012.
- ^ Bott, Ed (22 January 2013). "A close look at how Oracle installs deceptive software with Java updates". ZDNet. CBS Interactive. "IAC, which partners with Oracle to deliver the Ask toolbar, uses deceptive techniques to install its software ... The Ask.com search page delivers inferior search results and uses misleading and possibly illegal techniques to deceive visitors into clicking paid ads instead of organic search results."
- ^ "Ask Partner Network". Retrieved 20 November 2012.
- ^ "Oracle will continue to bundle 'crapware' with Java". Computerworld. 28 January 2013. "Bott found that the Ask.com toolbar was not immediately installed, but waited 10 minutes after Java finished to kick in. "I've never seen a legitimate program with an installer that behaves this way," said Bott"
- ^ "About Ask.com: TV Spots". Archived from the original on April 10, 2007. Retrieved April 25, 2007.
- ^ Ha, Anthony. "Ask.com Returns to TV, Cautiously". AdWeek. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
- ^ Vega, Tanzina. "Ask.com Heralds a New Focus". New York Times. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
- ^ Sandoval, Greg. "Hey, Times Square! I'm Google+. Please Notice Me". CNET. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
- ^ Sullivan, Laurie. "Ask.com Launches 'You Asked' Branding Campaign". Media Post. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
- ^ Official Release (January 14, 2009). "– Ask.com enters NASCAR with multi-faceted program – Jan 14, 2009". Nascar.com. Archived from the original on June 28, 2011. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
- ^ Duane Cross. "NASCAR.COM – Labonte will drive No. 96 for Hall of Fame in 2009 – Jan 14, 2009". Bbs.cid.cn.nascar.com. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
- ^ http://www.ask.com/nascar/2009-Shelby-427-race#results
- ^ "Ask.com Partners With NASCAR, Says "Super Verticals" Will Put It Back In Search Race". Searchengineland.com. January 13, 2009. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
- ^ Sullivan, Danny (2010-11-09). "Ask.com To Focus On Q&A Search, End Web Crawling". Search Engine Land. Retrieved 2012-10-17.
- ^ Martinez, Michael (2012-03-19). "Why is Ask.com Such a Bad Search Engine?". SEO Theory. Retrieved 2012-03-19.
External links[edit]
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