4 Years Later, IAC Would Sell Ask.com. Who wants it?
by Chris on Oct.28, 2009, under general, search marketing
IAC ranks right behind Yahoo in terms of skill in turning interesting web properties into web graveyards.
Four years ago IAC bought Ask Jeeves for stock worth 1.85 billion (at the time). But, since that IAC stock is now worth about 30% of its value back then that would place the deal’s present value at about 550 million—still way, way too much. Now it seems IAC is ready to put Ask (minus the Jeeves) on the block.
We were Ask Jeeves advertisers once upon a time. Back when they had their own ad management system instead of the horrible outsourced Looksmart clone they implemented in 2006—a decision I’ll never understand.
Back there in late 2005 there did seem to be a glimmer of hope that Ask Jeeves may grow their 3% search share to something bigger. They had a memorable brand with the Jeeves butler. But, IAC showed him the door in a rush to turn them into the next ho-hum online destination.
The butler didn’t fit with their rush to be just like Google. See, they’d upgraded their search technology so you didn’t have to do your searches in the form of a question. But maybe asking a question to the butler was the only fun thing about the site! I mean he was in the Macy’s day parade. Come on!
Interesting Utah factoid, one-time super-star Utah agency DSW created the original Jeeves brand (along with Intel Inside among others). DSW also gave COGBOX one of our very first jobs back in ‘97.
Good luck unloading Ask.com. I can’t imagine who would line up to buy it.
You had potential at one time, and it was squandered.
Here’s more on the topic.
