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Ask Jeeves Bought for $2 billion
RMX writes "CNet's reporting that
Ask Jeeves
is being bought by InterActive Corp
for $2 billion.
Ask Jeeves (ask.com,
excite.com,
iwon.com)
and InterActive Corp (expedia, ticketmaster, match.com, citysearch).
This marks a nice comeback for Ask Jeeves, whose stock was quite a roller coaster ride during the 2000-2003 .com crash. Are the good times back?"
It seems like when some new, highly exploitable technology comes out, hundreds of little companies start out. Those companies slowly die out, and the ones that are left, are gobbled up by the largest of the remaining companies, and it leaves room for the new, baby companies again.
.coms. Interesting..
Holds true for cars, computers, and now,
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Well just think of it this way. If google has more competition, then it will need to create an even better product in the future. I use google exclusively and I think it's a great search engine. However, I would not want it to push every other search engine out of the water. Then they'd never innovate and it'd eventually suck.
So while I don't use ask jeeves, I'm glad some people do.
People seem to think that you can ask real questions with ask jeeves. The results I get with questions on ask jeeves are actually worse than results I get through google for the same query (question).
I can tell you that the only time I was getting hits from Ask Jeeves is when I was banning a stalker from viewing my gallery. Ask Jeeves had apparently indexed my gallery at one point (ignoring the robots.txt) and had not removed it at any time.
I started seeing these OBNOXIOUS log entries with referrers from ask.com (see here).
I finally had to email ask.com to have them removed. They ignored my first request and then finally removed it after a repeated request. They certainly weren't as easy to deal w/as Google's removal tool.
Personally? I'd never use anything other than Google.
Historically everytime there has been a new technology there has been a "bubble" (You didn't think the internet bubble was the first bubble did you?
Money gets thrown in at a breakneck pace, there's a bubble for a few years and then KABOOM! Market implosion when reality finally hits.
Then after the smoke clears and the dust settles a new golden age begins followed by consolidation. I think it's safe to say that we are in consolidation mode now. Now is the time that the lasting 1600 pound gorillas get formed. Interactive Corp is one of those gorillas along with Ebay and Amazon.
I find that kind of amusing.
Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Convention
I noticed that too. Wasn't the situation that Bart and Lisa were reading Homer's map to the RV store and the directions said "Remember to Ask Jeeves".
Anyone want to correct me? I didn't know there'd be a test when I watched it.
To be fair, the episode also had Marge accussing Homer of doing nothing at work but Googling his own name.
.\.\att Clare
I tried to use Ask Jeeves a couple of times when it came out, and the answers I got to my questions were so bad, so wrong, so utterly useless, it hurt my feelings.
Try it now, it will take you back to the bad old days before Google, when nothing but random crap shows up. Then try Google, and feel the almost mystical connection from your query to your results.
It seems to me like it is almost a crime that no one has forcibly made the users of Ask Jeeves sit down and try Google.