Kent Newsome on technology, music and life

2/11/2006


Jeeves Gets the Ax

I read an article this morning that Jeeves, the valet that has been the logo for Ask Jeeves since it was founded in 1996, is getting the ax. I remember the brouhaha when Ask Jeeves debuted. The hook was that you could ask a question in plain English. I tried it once and I don't believe I've ever been back.

So I thought I'd go and Ask Jeeves a couple of final questions:

1) Does anybody actually use Ask Jeeves to search the internet?

He responded with three adds at the top of the list for videoprofessor (must be a poker buddy) and two people finder sites (maybe so I can catch up with him at his next gig), and a bunch of stories about his sacking.

So I thought I'd try again.

2) Why would anyone with two brain cells to dangle buy Ask Jeeves in March 2005 for $1.85B?

He responded with three more adds at the top of the list for a market research site, eBay (perhaps that's where the sale occurred) and some psychology site, and nothing else. Sounds like Jeeves doesn't want to talk about it.

So Jeeves is toast. The only real question is does anybody care?

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Posted by Kent @ 2/11/2006 11:13:00 AM | Permalink

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1 Comment(s):

I don't care about Jeeves getting the Ax, but it's a good search engine, and the first place I go when Google is annoying me.

Ummm, as an example, do a search for "audio books" in Google and then Ask and note the difference in the right column. Now ask yourself, which site's giving you the most useful results?

(I chose audio books because I was searching for them a lot a while back. In the end I got the impression Google was favouring commercial sites in its results, as apposed to sites that best matched what I was looking for.)

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2/11/2006 5:22 PM  
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