Ask Jeeves on Search, the Butler and Google
Interesting interview in which Andy Beal interviews Jim Lanzone, the Senior Vice President of AskJeeves.

The butler is definitely staying and they are trying to shake the "Ask Us a Question" reputation. Evidently one of the most popular questions is "Is Jeeves gay?".

Most notably, the partnership between Google and Ask is still a strong one. The acquisition of Teoma a few years back has kept AskJeeves on the forefront of search and they are in no hurry to offer a sponsored ad product.

Jim explains that they get to keep a large percentage of the ad revenues that are generated from this partnership. That percentage is estimated to be a substantial chunk too. Also, due to Google running the ads on a larger scale and Ask does not have to incur any overhead, the partnership is an amicable one -- at least until Ask can increase their search market share, that is.

- posted by Ronnie T. Dodger @ 10/06/2004 08:31:00 PM