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Ask Jeeves Bought for $2 billion

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the jeeves-let-me-axe-u-sumthin dept.

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?"

11 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. IWon is right! by bigtallmofo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do you think the creators of www.iwon.com had any idea they'd be in store for a $2,000,000,000 windfall?

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
  2. Did anyone by OAB_X · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Really ever use ask jeeves? I mean, I used it once or twice several years ago, but is it really that popular to be bought for 2 billion? I cant think of anyone who uses it consistently, or even rarely.

    1. Re:Did anyone by REBloomfield · · Score: 4, Informative

      all the non-technical staff here do, they seem to think that you can just ask it anything and it knows the answer. I've seen some really bad full sentence queries get put into it....

    2. Re:Did anyone by garcia · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Did anyone by yelvington · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not just about AskJeeves, it's about the entire stable of sites/brands/technologies that it owns: Teoma (search technology), Excite, iWon, MyWay and Bloglines. In that collection, there's actually more usage outside the Ask brand that inside it. Here's a recent snapshot.

  3. The Poster Askes by Kushy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are the good times back?

    Yes they are just not for the USA. Its a good time for India and China, with cheap ass CEO's CFO's CTO's, all outsourcing.

    I really do not see any 'good times' ahead for IT ppl in the US.

    --
    "The word "genius" isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein," - Joe Theisman
  4. So... by Mindjiver · · Score: 4, Funny

    did anyone care to ask Jeeves what he thinks of this?

    --
    I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
  5. Natural Progression of Business... by ciroknight · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    Holds true for cars, computers, and now, .coms. Interesting..

    --
    "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
  6. Good going Jeeves! by AtariAmarok · · Score: 5, Funny

    With $2 billion in his pocket, maybe he can afford now to pay his OWN butler.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  7. Bloglines too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ask Jeeves, Inc. also owns Bloglines.

    Did InterActive own any blog type services prior to this acquisition?

  8. Sounds about right... by magicclams · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given that the company made about $86 million last year, the selling price ($1.9 billion) represents a price to earnings ratio of ~22...a bit on the high side, but not out of line with a company whose earnings more than doubled last year. Given that this is a profitable survivor acquiring another profitable survivor, I don't think this represents a slide back into the (good? bad?) old days of multi-billion dollar valuations for stocks that barely have a business plan. As for that profitability, it may seem odd to those of us who take it for granted that a query like "prescription drugs canada" makes more sense than "Where can I buy prescription drugs in Canada?", but we're tech geeks. Ask around..."Jeeves" is the portal of choice for the techno-phobic middle-aged and elderly, who typically have a much higher money-to-brains ratio than computer geeks.