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Ask Jeeves plans to launch a desktop-search feature in December, a company representative said.
Desktop search has become the latest battleground among leading search players, with Google, Microsoft's MSN division and Yahoo all working on products. But if desktop search catches on among users, it's unclear how it would affect the webmasters and marketers vying for top rankings.
While Emeryville, Calif.-based Ask Jeeves hasn't provided many details, its product appears likely to follow the approach of other Web search engines by combining hard-drive results, such as from e-mails and files, with its core Web results.
"It's going to be an inclusive thing, and we hope to incorporate the whole experience," said Michael Palka, director of product management at Ask Jeeves.
Signs of Ask Jeeves' desktop plans surfaced earlier this year when it acquired desktop-search startup Tukaroo Inc.
During the launch in September of the MyJeeves personalized search service, an Ask Jeeves executive told eWEEK.com that desktop search would be out by the end of the year and would include integration with MyJeeves.
Among major Web search engines, it will join Google Inc., which already released its desktop search beta, and Microsoft Corp., whose MSN division has slated a beta of desktop search for December.
Google Desktop Search delivers both local and Web results within its Web interface. Meanwhile, an internal beta of MSN's product leaked onto the Web this week focuses on returning different types of results depending on where a user is working within Windows.
Also in the wings is Yahoo. Its chief executive, Terry Semel, said in a financial analyst conference earlier this month that the Sunnyvale, Calif., company is working on desktop search, but he offered few details on its plans.
Source: eWeek
Ask Jeeves launches AJinteractive, the company's new U.S. advertising products and sales division.
AJinteractive was formed to provide advertisers and publishers with world-class search, direct marketing, and media solutions, to effectively reach their target audience.
AJinteractive brings together the advertising products and the sales forces from Ask Jeeves U.S. and Interactive Search Holdings (ISH).
ISH was acquired by Ask Jeeves in May 2004, and ISH properties include the MaxOnline network, Excite (www.excite.com), My Way (myway.com) and iWon (iwon.com).
AJinteractive was formed to accommodate the larger suite of advertising products as a result of the acquisition, and provide a single point of contact for advertising across a network of leading online properties.
AJinteractive provides online marketing solutions within three main categories: Search, Media, and Direct Marketing:
-- Search Solutions: Offers advertisers targeted online advertising opportunities. The product offering includes graphical and paid listing ad units that are delivered within the Ask Jeeves, Inc. network of search properties.
-- Media Solutions: Leverages a portfolio of properties to enable advertisers to effectively reach their target audience while providing publishers with powerful revenue- generating opportunities. The media solutions product offering includes Ask Jeeves (Ask.com), the MaxOnline network, Excite, My Way and iWon.
-- Direct Marketing Solutions: Provides advertisers with effective direct marketing solutions by leveraging industry expertise, customer relationships and a diversified product suite. The direct marketing product offering includes email, lead generation, search engine marketing and promotions.
Source: Ask Jeeves
Students at a secondary school in Bradford, UK saw more than they expected when an innocent classroom search returned them to a porn site.
The school children were using the Ask Jeeves' UK-based search engine to look for information on the heart during a biology lesson.
The links to hardcore pornography appeared because of a matching error between the keyword and the results, said Ask Jeeves.
The fault has now been rectified. Ruth Whitehead, Head of Science at the Hanson Secondary School, was teaching a biology lesson to a group of sixth formers two weeks ago when the problem occurred.
"One of the girls called me over and we were both shocked at what we saw," Miss Whitehead told BBC News Online.
"It was fortunate that it was a sixth-form group. If it had been a group of 11-year-olds it would not have been good," she said.
According to Ask Jeeves' director of product Tony Macklin, the problem came about because of a new filtering system that the company has installed.
The system identifies search terms that could lead to adult content, and triggers a warning page before the links appear.
One of the terms was the name of a porn star Tera Heart. "It was only meant to identify the two words in combination but this one did slip through," said Mr Macklin.
The system has been taken out of use while it is thoroughly tested, he said.
Filtering software installed by the school would have prevented the teenagers from accessing the sites but the list of contents was enough to make even the most knowledgeable of butlers blush.
"Basically the search term we put in has gone off on a tangent and brought up hardcore porn," explained the school's network administrator Matt Charlton.
"None of the other search engines produced such a result," he added.
The school has temporarily suspended access to ask.co.uk. Search engines such as Ask Jeeves are used extensively in schools as an integral part of the curriculum.
Inappropriate search results remain "an industry problem" according to Ask Jeeves.
"We are the most pro-active search engine, working on ways to limit exposure to such content," said Mr Macklin.
As well as displaying a warning page when queries trigger adult content, the search engine has recently added a new "your settings" features designed to help users guard against inappropriate content.
Making sure children are not exposed to inappropriate content at home or school is a concern of government.
It has launched the Web safe initiative, of which Ask Jeeves is a member, to provide a safe environment for children on the web.
Source: BBC.co.uk
Internet search provider Ask Jeeves said second-quarter earnings more than doubled, after the company increased its market share with the acquisition of Interactive Search Holdings earlier this year.
Second-quarter earnings rose to $11.6 million, or 18 cents per share, from $4.9 million, or 9 cents per share, last year, the company said.
Excluding amortization and other charges, the company had earnings from continuing operations of $15.7 million, or 24 cents per share, up from earnings from continuing operations of $5.2 million, or 10 cents a share, last year.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call estimated Ask Jeeves' second-quarter earnings at 22 cents per share.
Revenue for the second quarter rose 136 percent to $60.3 million from $25.6 million last year, Ask Jeeves said.
The company said it expects third-quarter earnings of $16.5 million, or 24 cents per share, excluding charges, on revenue of $74 million. With amortization charges from the acquisition, the company predicts earnings per share of 14 cents. For fiscal 2004, the company expects unadjusted earnings of $1.03 per share, or 77 cents per share after charges, on revenue of about $260 million.
Analysts predict the company will post third-quarter earnings of 27 cents a share on revenue of $76.6 million and fiscal 2004 earnings of $1.04 a share on revenue of $260 million.
Shares of Ask Jeeves recently traded down 51 cents to $27.35 in after-hours trading on the Nasdaq National Market after ending the regular session down $3.16 to $27.86.
Source: Ask Jeeves
With Ask Jeeves and MSN eliminating paid inclusion listings from their search results this month, Yahoo is the lone holdout among major search engines to let advertisers pay to have their Web pages in its search results.
Unlike paid placement, advertisers paying for inclusion in a search index are not promised placement. Instead, they are promised that their sites will be included in a search index. The practice has advantages for businesses with constantly changing Web pages that are not indexed as frequently by Web search spiders.
Search leader Google has taken a firm stand against the practice, vowing never to accept payment for inclusion. Its IPO filing makes its stance explicit: "Our search results will be objective and we will not accept payment for inclusion or ranking in them."
Google’s stance has gained converts. Ask Jeeves this month banished its last vestige of paid inclusion, Site Submit, which let Web publishers pay to ensure Ask Jeeves’s Teoma spider scanned their sites. The Emeryville, CA, search engine eliminated its Index Express XML paid inclusion service in March that charged each time a listing was clicked.
MSN followed suit this month when it unveiled a new look to its search pages. A longtime user of paid inclusion pioneer LookSmart, MSN removed all paid inclusion from the search engine, including Site Match listings provided through its use of Yahoo’s Web search technology.
Yahoo remains committed to its 6-month-old Site Match paid inclusion program. When it debuted the program, Yahoo executives explained that it would address the problem of search spiders not reaching all the Web’s content.
As a companion to the paid program, Yahoo operates the Content Acquisition Program, which lets noncommercial sites feed their Web pages through for free. Yahoo has signed National Public Radio, the Library of Congress, The New York Public Library and others for the Content Acquisition Program.
"We are still committed to the Content Acquisition Program," Yahoo spokeswoman Stephanie Ichinose said. "We continue to work with content providers to consider ways to evolve and improve the program."
Nate Elliott, a Jupiter Research analyst, said paid inclusion still has a bright future because search engines simply cannot refresh their indexes quickly enough to offer the best possible search results. Jupiter expects paid inclusion spending to reach at least $200 million next year.
When it dropped Site Match from its listings, MSN did not rule out returning to some form of paid inclusion, including through Yahoo, as long as it is clear to users which listings are paid and the index is improved.
"I wouldn’t be surprised to see MSN back in the [paid] inclusion game," Elliott said. "They clearly don’t have any philosophical problem with it."
Fredrick Marckini, CEO of Arlington, MA, search marketing firm iProspect, said most of his clients use Site Match, benefiting from the guarantee that Yahoo will crawl their sites every 48 hours. Since iProspect estimates up to 70 percent of all clicks occur in the algorithmic search results, Site Match has been useful, he said.
"Without Site Match, you’re never assured that more than 50 percent of the Web site will be included in the index," he said.
Critics contend Site Match gives the appearance that Yahoo favors paid inclusion listings over non-paid, since it charges a fee each time a paid inclusion listing gets clicked. Marckini does not think Yahoo gives Site Match listings favorable placement, but a submitted listing is easier for Yahoo’s search algorithm to consider than a crawled Web page, giving a paid inclusion Web page a de facto boost.
Jim Lanzone, vice president of product management at Ask Jeeves, said the search engine found combining structured content of paid inclusion feeds with unstructured content of Web search like mixing "apples and oranges."
"We found that it affected relevance," he said. "Sometimes that would be positive, but that was an accident. More often than not it was negative."
The Federal Trade Commission two years ago issued guidelines for paid inclusion, recommending that search engines "clearly and conspicuously" disclose that some sites paid to have their Web pages included in the index. Yahoo provides that disclosure under an "about this page" link at the top of its search results page.
Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Watch, an industry Web site, has criticized Site Match for not disclosing which listings paid to be included in the index.
"I don’t like the way it’s currently offered on Yahoo," he said. "It goes against how Web search is traditionally supposed to operate."
The greatest concern for Yahoo could be Site Match affecting its standing as a search engine. It ranks behind Google in search share, drawing 30 percent to Google’s 36 percent, according to comScore Media Metrix. MSN ranks third with 16 percent of searches.
"The only way this could really hurt them is if consumers dislike Yahoo because it uses [paid] inclusion," Elliott said. "But consumers don’t know it’s happening."
Source: DM News
In the first month since closing on the acquisition of new search properties, Ask Jeeves increased its Web traffic 150 percent, to become the sixth-most-visited Internet property in June, according to comScore Media Metrix.
The Internet measurement firm said yesterday that Ask Jeeves' monthly unique visitors ballooned to 39.3 million, up from 15.7 million in May. The traffic explosion, which vaulted the company up 18 places to No. 6, came thanks to the addition of properties acquired through Interactive Search Holdings, including the MyWay, iWon and MySearch portal sites.
Ask Jeeves executives painted the $501 million ISH acquisition as a way for Ask Jeeves to quickly expand its reach in the search market.
According to comScore, Ask Jeeves and the ISH search properties accounted for 6 percent of Internet searches in May. Last quarter, the Emeryville, CA, search engine said it increased queries 42 percent from the same period a year earlier, excluding ISH's properties. Combined, Ask Jeeves said its search properties handled 1.7 billion searches in the quarter.
The increased market share figures to help Ask Jeeves in its negotiations with Google over renewing their paid search distribution agreement, which expires in September 2005 but allows for either party to terminate it this September or October. Google's paid search ads accounted for 69 percent of Ask Jeeves' revenue in the first quarter.
Another search property saw its traffic surge from a recent acquisition. InfoSpace had a 44 percent rise in traffic in June to 19.2 million visitors thanks to its purchase of Internet yellow pages site Switchboard.
Source: DM News
Ask Jeeves's decision to participate in Macy's Thanksgiving day parade underscores the new era at the company.
It has emerged from the brink of extinction during the dot-com downturn to become consistently profitable.
Unconstrained by financial worries, Ask Jeeves, based in Emeryville, has initiated its most aggressive phase yet. Over the past few months, the company has made two major acquisitions and introduced new features that signal its intent to grab a bigger piece of a search market pie.
"I know we can become an even stronger force in the marketplace," said Steve Berkowitz, the company's chief executive.
To succeed, Ask Jeeves must overcome the disadvantage of its diminutive size. Industry leaders Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN are several times larger and have far deeper pockets.
Furthermore, Ask Jeeves must counter a reputation earned during its infancy of inferior search results. Although the company is receiving accolades from analysts for improving its search quality, the question remains whether the effort is enough to lure new users or prompt existing ones to visit more frequently.
The most notable event for Ask Jeeves recently was its $501 million acquisition of Interactive Search Holdings, a private Irvington, N.Y., company with several Web sites. They include IWon, a search portal that attracts users with millions of dollars in cash prizes; Excite, a traditional portal; and MyWay, a bare-bones search engine.
Berkowitz describes the acquisition, which was finalized in May, as part of a strategy to own multiple brands with distinct personalities. Users, he said, want to access information differently, not necessarily in a one-size- fits-all model like Google and Yahoo.
Bob Davis, a venture capitalist who is the former chief executive of Terra Lycos, owner of the Lycos Web portal, compared the plan to television companies owning several channels in an effort to appeal to different demographics.
"It makes a ton of sense," he said. An added benefit of the acquisition is the array of portal-like features that come with the new Web sites. E-mail, news feeds and personalization technology, such as the ability to change a Web page's color, were bells and whistles that Ask Jeeves previously lacked but give users a reason to stay longer and enter more search queries.
Most notably, the Interactive Search Holdings acquisition nearly doubled Ask Jeeves' search market share. Combined, the two properties controlled 6.1 percent of all U.S. searches in May, according to ComScore QSearch. Google dominated the industry with 36.8 percent of the market. Yahoo was second at 26. 6 percent, followed by Microsoft and its MSN portal at 14.5 percent.
Ask Jeeves, whose name is inspired by a butler in the books of English novelist P.G. Wodehouse, was founded in 1996 by David Warthen, the company's current chief technology officer, and Garrett Gruener, a venture capitalist. The Web site, which encouraged users to type in questions rather than simply entering keywords as was the norm, went live a year later.
In short order, Ask Jeeves was swept up in the dot-com frenzy. Big losses and a soaring stock were par for the course.
By the time the Internet bubble had popped, the Ask Jeeves butler was nearly in a coma. The company's shares ultimately fell below $1, a sign that many on Wall Street had given it up for dead.
Management embarked on a painful turnaround. They cut jobs, pinched pennies and invested in improving their search engine.
Today, Ask Jeeves is a stellar performer. Its shares finished trading Friday at $30.29, up by a factor of 40 from its low in 2001.
The turning point came when Ask Jeeves agreed to run sponsored advertising links, currently supplied by Google. Such marketing, now a standard in the search industry, became a big moneymaker.
"Jeeves is sitting in a position today that is so different from a year or two years ago, where we sat in some cases on a precipice," Berkowitz said. "We can still go up or down, but the difference between our up and down today is that we have a sustainable business model and that no matter what happens, we are going to be in business."
Berkowitz, a New York native, came to Ask Jeeves in 2001 as president before assuming the chief executive role last year. He was previously president of IDG Books, where he expanded the "Dummies" series of how-to books in addition to overseeing the acquisitions of Frommers Travel Guides, Cliff Notes and Betty Crocker Cookbooks.
In 2003, Ask Jeeves earned a profit of $24.8 million on $107.3 million in revenue. Helped by acquisitions, the company expects to post a profit of around $49.5 million on $255 million in revenue this year.
The growth spurt is allowing Ask Jeeves to relocate from its cramped headquarters to a downtown Oakland high-rise in December. Ask Jeeves had planned to move into the same building in 2001. But with the losses and layoffs, it changed course and was forced to pay $16 million to get out of the lease.
The quest to build a better search engine is three years in the making. The company abandoned its trademark reliance on human editors to compile lists of results, in favor of algorithmic search.
The foundation is the search technology Teoma. It ranks results based primarily on links from "respected members" of Web sites related to a particular subject rather than links from just any Web site.
On top of that, Ask Jeeves has added features to keep its engine competitive in terms of quality. Most revolve around the idea of getting users to the information they are seeking in fewer clicks.
Called SmartSearch, users can enter a keyword such as a celebrity's name and immediately get a small biography and photograph above the usual results. There are around 170 examples of SmartSearch in all, some of which were rolled out as recently as last month, including surf conditions, terror alert levels and movie titles.
Among the other new and distinctive features on Ask Jeeves are binoculars, which appear as small icons next to search results. Placing a cursor over the icons allows users to quickly preview many Web pages.
"Ask Jeeves has demonstrated that they have turned around their search," said Chris Sherman, editor of SearchDay, an online newsletter about the search industry, and president of a Web consulting firm in Boulder, Colo. "People are pleasantly surprised when they give them another try."
Still, Jim Lanzone, senior vice president of search properties for Ask Jeeves, recognizes that there is still more work to be done to change consumer perceptions.
"We're like a little kid on the playground who was skinny and could be pushed around," he said. "We're bulked up but haven't quite gotten the respect. "
Future product releases planned by Ask Jeeves include software that would allow users to search the Web and computer hard drive files simultaneously. The company signaled its interest in June when it bought Tukaroo, a San Jose firm that specializes in desktop searches.
The acquisition, made for an undisclosed amount, was Ask Jeeves' second this year. Microsoft and, reportedly, Google, are working on similar technologies.
Berkowitz's goal is for Ask Jeeves to eventually win a double-digit share of the search market. He doesn't see the job so much as stealing traffic from other search engines as persuading occasional users to visit more often.
"If I had to acquire new users, then it would definitely cost a lot of money," Berkowitz said. "But if I could get one more search from the people who use me, then I think our market share goes up 10 percent per month."
Sasa Zorovic, an analyst for Oppenheimer & Co., the investment bank, applauded Ask Jeeves' turnaround. And he expects rapid growth for the company in line with the rest of the search industry.
But Zorovic isn't optimistic about Ask Jeeves actually narrowing the gap with its rivals, at least without more acquisitions. Yahoo, Google and MSN are all investing heavily in Web site upgrades and showing no signs of giving up so easily, he said.
"They'll all be putting pressure on Jeeves," Zorovic said. He doesn't own any Ask Jeeves shares and his firm does not have a banking relationship with the company.
Ask Jeeves' advertising partnership with Google is another concern. The deal provides Ask Jeeves with about 65 percent of its revenue, according to Berkowitz.
Davis, the former Terra Lycos executive, called it risky to depend so much on one source of revenue. Google could eventually pull the plug, he said.
Berkowitz responded that creating a small advertising network like Google's wouldn't be wise, at least at the moment. There are already a few others, including FindWhat and Yahoo's Overture.
"Would I love to do it all myself? Absolutely," Berkowitz said. "Do I think it's the right thing for us to do? Absolutely not right now."
As for Sorensen, the artist responsible for drawing the Ask Jeeves butler, 2004 holds a lot of promise.
The butler balloon will float through midtown Manhattan on Thanksgiving Day. For the past couple of years, the butler -- who last participated in the parade in 2002 -- has kept a low profile because of a limited marketing budget and its association with the old Ask Jeeves.
Although no new advertising campaign has been planned, Sorensen is already thinking of redrawing the icon without the chubby cheeks to reflect what he calls the company's newly speedy searches.
Source: SF Gate
Ask Jeeves UK teams up with search engine Kelkoo to add a Product Search facility to its list of 'smart' search tools.
Product Search is designed to enable easier search across a variety of shopping categories and comes on the back of comprehensive research into peoples online and offline shopping behaviours.
Through the new 'smart' tool, shopping-related queries are immediately tagged, which then automatically deliver visitors to a Product Search results page.
Using its natural language capabilities to identify what stage of the shopping cycle, a customer is in - finding, researching or buying - Product Search then tailors the search according to their request.
Added features of Product Search include product feature comparisons, product price comparisons, links to online stores that sell the product as well as clarification and sorting tools.
The new search product will be powered by Ask Jeeves Teoma search technology, its natural language processing algorithms, and product search tools supplied by Kelkoo.
Online shopping comparison service Kelkoo launched its new product search division last month, and headed up by former marketing director Dorothea Arndt.
Bought by Yahoo in March for EU475m, the company said that its product search accounted for more than 30% of its fourth quarter revenues last year.
Aylin Savkan, vice-president of marketing for Ask Jeeves said: "Product-related searches require a different approach than general Web searches. Our intuitive new shopping tool guides users directly to the right product information at the right time."
Google currently has a shopping search feature called Froogle, which integrates the search engine's relevancy ranking system to provide the results, then links directly to sites selling specific products.
Source: Net Imperative
Ask Jeeves is currently conducting limited tests of a new search preview feature, offering searchers a graphical peek at their results.
Search result pages reflecting the trial feature were discovered by Andy Beal, VP of search marketing for WebSourced and editor of search-focused blog Search Engine Lowdown.
An Ask Jeeves screen grab posted on Beal's blog reveals a page of search results in which a tiny set of binoculars appears next to each link. Rolling over the binoculars causes an image preview of the linked-to page to appear.
Further searches on Ask Jeeves did not turn up the graphical preview feature, but technology companies commonly test new features on a subset of Web site visitors.
Ask Jeeves representatives declined to comment on any wide rollout of a "look ahead" feature, saying it regularly conducts trials of new product ideas that may or may not be pursued.
"In the normal course of product development, Ask Jeeves tests products with a limited number of users from time to time," said an Ask Jeeves spokesperson. "Andy simply stumbled across one of these tests, but we have no product announcements in this regard at this time."
A graphic preview such as that being tested by Ask Jeeves offers users the benefit of no-click peek at the Web content that lies beyond a search engine's results page.
Catching such a glimpse into landing pages could shorten the time it takes searchers to find relevant results, as they wouldn't have to load an entire page's content to assess its relevancy. The method would also decrease surfers' reliance on the back button when they encounter non-relevant content.
New York-based Viewpoint Corporation is offering similar "graphically enhanced search" technology in the form of a toolbar plug-in. It launched in March 2004, and uses search results from Yahoo! Canada's Smartdevil has long been pushing graphical previews, which it calls Thumbshots, in Web search results.
Source: Click Z
Ask Jeeves's acquisition of software startup Tukaroo is an example of the kind of small transactions the company expects to continue to make, CFO Steve Sordello said.
Small buys like this one, which was announced Wednesday, won't affect the company's financial results but are "strategically important" as it works to strengthen its technology position for the search industry's coming battles, Sordello told a New York conference.
Ask Jeeves, of Emeryville, Calif., will acquire the assets of closely held Tukaroo, a San Jose, Calif., startup which develops specialized search software. Tukaroo was incorporated in 2003 and has not yet released any products on the market.
Terms were not disclosed. The acquisition is significant because it gives Ask Jeeves technology to allow consumers to quickly search for e-mails and files on their computers' hard drives.
Ask Jeeves' rivals are rushing into this area. Terra Lycos, the Internet unit of Spain's Telefonica SA, in March launched HotBot Desktop, free software that does that, besides handling Web searches.
Analysts and search-software makers who have talked with Google say they expect the company to release it's own desktop search tool before long.
Microsoft Corp.'s new search technology, expected later this year, will include improved ways of combing the hard drives of PCs. Microsoft is also building such functions into the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, due around 2006.
In January, Tukaroo said it had completed technology for fast searches of files on a user's hard drive, local networks, and the Internet. It said it had developed so-called toolbar software to run on a user's computer.
Tukaroo also said it had come up with a new, better way to organize search results and a system to serve up advertisements to users.
Tukaroo was founded by Creighton Chong and Jeffrey Sidlosky, who have joined Ask Jeeves' staff.
Sordello told a conference hosted by Deutsche Bank that Ask Jeeves believes that technology will become an "even more critical component" of a competitive equation that also includes a fight for user traffic and advertisers targeting those users.
Ask Jeeves, which is now the No. 7 Web property based on users, has proprietary search technology, but gets advertisers through a partnership with Google.
Shares of Ask Jeeves closed at $38.45, down $2.17, or 5.3 percent, Wednesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Source: Yahoo Finance
Ask Jeeves has filed a universal shelf registration statement on Form S-3 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
After the registration statement is declared effective by the SEC, the Company will be able to offer and sell up to $400 million of its common stock, preferred stock, depositary shares, debt securities and warrants from time to time in one or more public offerings.
The terms of any such future offerings would be established at the time of such offering.
A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the SEC but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state.
Ask Jeeves, Inc. provides consumers and advertisers with search and media products across a diverse portfolio of Web sites, portals and desktop search applications.
Ask Jeeves' search and search-based portal brands include: Ask Jeeves (Ask.com and Ask.co.uk); Ask Jeeves for Kids (AJKids.com); Excite (excite.com); iWon (iwon.com); My Search (mysearch.com); My Way (myway.com); My Web Search (mywebsearch.com) and Teoma (teoma.com).
Ask Jeeves also owns the search technology Teoma, proprietary natural language processing technology, as well as portal and ad serving technologies. In addition to powering several of the Ask Jeeves brands, the Company syndicates its technologies to help companies increase revenue through powerful search.
Ask Jeeves' advertising services, which includes Ask Jeeves, The Excite Network, and MaxOnline, provides advertisers with targeted tools to reach a broad base of highly valuable customers.
Ask Jeeves, Inc. is headquartered in Emeryville, California, with offices throughout the United States, as well as in London, Dublin, and Tokyo.
Source: inSourced
Ask Jeeves announced today that the Company received the Stevie award in the Best Business Turnaround category in The 2004 American Business Awards.
Ask Jeeves received the Stevie Award from among a number of finalists including Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Covad Communications, My Family.com and Aerco International. Past American Business Awards winners include UPS, Spirit Airlines, R.R Donnelly, IBM and Oracle.
The American Business Awards is the first national, all-encompassing business awards program honoring great performances in the workplace.
Nicknamed the Stevies for the Greek word “crowned,” the awards were presented during ceremonies at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers in New York City on Monday, May 10th.
More than 100 Stevies were presented in over 40 categories including Best Overall Company, Best Executive, Most Innovative Company, and Best New Product or Service. Over 800 nominations from companies of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted for consideration.
Steve Berkowitz, Ask Jeeves President and CEO, accepted the Stevie on behalf of Ask Jeeves, attributing the Company’s turnaround to the dedication, efforts and accomplishments of the entire Ask Jeeves staff, as well as the Company’s single-minded focus on providing leading user experiences in the burgeoning search space.
“We are honored to be recognized by the American Business Awards for turning the Company around,” said Steve Berkowitz during his acceptance speech Monday night.
“We are now the 7th largest property on the Web with more than 39 million users. This award is a testament to both Ask Jeeves’ achievement in the highly competitive and rapidly growing search engine market, and to our dedicated employees who are the reason for the turnaround. Congratulations to all of the nominees and winners.”
Source: Search Engine Journal
Under the terms of the agreement, Ask Jeeves issued 9.3 million shares of common stock and options, and paid approximately $144 million in cash.
Ask Jeeves said it closed its $501 million purchase of Interactive Search Holdings, a move expected to double Ask Jeeves' share of the competitive Web search market.
The acquisition, first announced in March, included privately held Interactive Search Holdings' Web properties and businesses such as My Way, iWon, Excite, My Search, My Web Search and the MaxOnline advertising network.
"This acquisition doubles our market share and enhances our ability to compete in the fast-growing search market," Ask Jeeves Chief Executive, Steve Berkowitz said in a statement.
Google Incorporation, the current Web search leader, recently announced plans for an initial public offering. Its key rival, Yahoo Inc. last year spent $1 billion to boost its position.
Source: CIOL.com
Ask Jeeves Inc. on Tuesday posted earnings that topped Wall Street expectations and raised its guidance on its stock.
The company raised its quarterly and full-year forecasts, citing increased Internet traffic and a rise in Web-search ad revenue.
Ask Jeeves (ASKJ) shares gained almost 4 percent in extended trade after the company boosted its outlook on the heels of first-quarter results that handily beat Wall Street's profit and revenue forecasts.
Emeryville, California-based Ask Jeeves had a profit from continuing operations of $13.4 million, or 23 cents per diluted share, compared with its year-earlier income from continuing operations of $8.5 million, or 17 cents per diluted share. The year-earlier results included an acquisition-related gain of 10 cents per share.
Revenue was up almost 73 percent, to $39.2 million from $22.7 million last year. The company's advertising partnership with Google Inc., the No. 1 Web search provider, contributed 69 percent of overall revenue.
Analysts had expected Ask Jeeves to post a profit in the range of 16 cents to 19 cents a share on revenue of $35 million to $37.5 million, according to Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.
Ask Jeeves Chief Executive Steve Berkowitz told Reuters in a telephone interview that the company's growth had been fueled mainly by recent improvements to its Teoma search technology, coupled with existing Smart Search features that focus on such things as products, pictures and news.
With just 3 percent of the overall Web search market, Ask Jeeves is dwarfed by industry giants Google and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Nevertheless, it owns its own search engine and is seen by market experts as a strong alternative to the larger players.
"When we look at our technology, not only is it getting better, but it's different," said Berkowitz, who added that the company also is working to deliver more targeted ads.
"Advertisers are going to come where the users are," he said.
Ask Jeeves expects to close its cash and stock purchase of Interactive Search Holdings in mid-May, a move that is expected to nearly double its Web search market share.
ISH owns Web search sites iWon, Excite and others, which should help Ask Jeeves reach more users while providing a platform for delivering more personalized search results, executives said.
Excluding ISH, Ask Jeeves now sees second-quarter revenue of $38 million. It expects per-share earnings, excluding amortization, of 17 cents and net earnings of 16 cents.
Including ISH, the company expects quarterly revenue of $55 million and per-share earnings, excluding amortization, of 21 cents and net income of 15 cents.
For 2004, Ask Jeeves now sees revenue of about $255 million and earnings, excluding amortization, of $1.00 per share. It sees net income of 75 cents a share.
"The second quarter was a little conservative," said Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Imran Khan, who added that Ask Jeeves' 2004 outlook was in line with his own numbers.
Ask Jeeves shares rose to $38.49 in extended trade, after falling 6 percent to $36.90 on the Nasdaq ahead of the earnings report.
The stock has more than doubled since the start of the year.
Source: Ask Jeeves
Ask Jeeves Inc. on Tuesday posted earnings that topped Wall Street expectations and raised its guidance on its stock.
The company raised its quarterly and full-year forecasts, citing increased Internet traffic and a rise in Web-search ad revenue.
Ask Jeeves (ASKJ) shares gained almost 4 percent in extended trade after the company boosted its outlook on the heels of first-quarter results that handily beat Wall Street's profit and revenue forecasts.
Emeryville, California-based Ask Jeeves had a profit from continuing operations of $13.4 million, or 23 cents per diluted share, compared with its year-earlier income from continuing operations of $8.5 million, or 17 cents per diluted share. The year-earlier results included an acquisition-related gain of 10 cents per share.
Revenue was up almost 73 percent, to $39.2 million from $22.7 million last year. The company's advertising partnership with Google Inc., the No. 1 Web search provider, contributed 69 percent of overall revenue.
Analysts had expected Ask Jeeves to post a profit in the range of 16 cents to 19 cents a share on revenue of $35 million to $37.5 million, according to Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.
Ask Jeeves Chief Executive Steve Berkowitz told Reuters in a telephone interview that the company's growth had been fueled mainly by recent improvements to its Teoma search technology, coupled with existing Smart Search features that focus on such things as products, pictures and news.
With just 3 percent of the overall Web search market, Ask Jeeves is dwarfed by industry giants Google and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Nevertheless, it owns its own search engine and is seen by market experts as a strong alternative to the larger players.
"When we look at our technology, not only is it getting better, but it's different," said Berkowitz, who added that the company also is working to deliver more targeted ads.
"Advertisers are going to come where the users are," he said.
Ask Jeeves expects to close its cash and stock purchase of Interactive Search Holdings in mid-May, a move that is expected to nearly double its Web search market share.
ISH owns Web search sites iWon, Excite and others, which should help Ask Jeeves reach more users while providing a platform for delivering more personalized search results, executives said.
Excluding ISH, Ask Jeeves now sees second-quarter revenue of $38 million. It expects per-share earnings, excluding amortization, of 17 cents and net earnings of 16 cents.
Including ISH, the company expects quarterly revenue of $55 million and per-share earnings, excluding amortization, of 21 cents and net income of 15 cents.
For 2004, Ask Jeeves now sees revenue of about $255 million and earnings, excluding amortization, of $1.00 per share. It sees net income of 75 cents a share.
"The second quarter was a little conservative," said Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Imran Khan, who added that Ask Jeeves' 2004 outlook was in line with his own numbers.
Ask Jeeves shares rose to $38.49 in extended trade, after falling 6 percent to $36.90 on the Nasdaq ahead of the earnings report.
The stock has more than doubled since the start of the year.
Source: Ask Jeeves
