When Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp. bought Ask Jeeves for $1.8B, it gave the ambitious Diller a way to take on Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Time Warner’s AOL. The company has continued to invest in the company.
But despite the high expectations and investment in Ask.com, its share of the search market has been slipping as Google has tightened its grip, according to ComScore:
- In April 2007, Ask garnered only 5.1% of the search market as compared with 49.7% for Google.
- In April 2006, Ask had 5.8% vs. Google’s 43.1%.
- In April 2005, Ask had 6.1% vs. Google’s 36.5%.
So if the glass is half-empty, then this is just shooting more bullets into a dead person. But if the glass is half-full, then at least the folks at MSN and Yahoo!, then Ask is trying to do something about the “market slippage.”
Today Ask.com relaunched as Ask3D, a new interface that it hopes will narrow the lead between Ask.com and the Top 3 of search: GOOG, YHOO, and MSN.
I’ve always rooted for Ask. Sure, Jeeves sucked… but the new and revamped Ask - since it bought Teoma, and sold to IAC - has potential, if anyone notices. Well today Ask.com came out with a barrage of new bells and whistles, ultimately betting that a new interface will matter. I think it will matter to some, but I also think that for 96% of the population, Google - search and they won’t be bothered to even give the new Ask a try.
The one thing that Ask has going for itself, really, is that IAC has a plethora of media properties that give Ask.com an automatic distribution plugin. So if all of those people use Ask.com and they see a difference, talk about it, etc., then maybe it will matter.
Ultimately, not sure it will.
Search is a whoppingly profitable business. It is strategically wise to have a search strategy in-house (that’s why Mojo Supreme has a vertical search and a video meta search in-house) so we commend Barry Diller but this is really too little, too late.
We’re probably wrong on this one because search really is in the early stages of the game: but given Barry Diller’s trigger happy dealmaker nature, we think he’s propping up Ask.com to sell it to either Yahoo!, Microsoft or Time Warner. Ultimately, IAC - worth $10B - will be faced with a pretty simple choice:
1 - Continue to invest in Ask.com with no real dividend in sight OR
2 - Sell off Ask.com for a nice return on the $1.8B it paid for it AND then use Google which provides a far better monetization alternative without the R&D expense to maintain (Historically Google and Ask had a deal in place for ads).
Part 2: What is Ask.com Worth?
June 5th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
[…] Ask3D has been a long journey for Ask.com and owner InterActive Corp. At HipMojo.com Froosh notes that despite the high expectations and investment in Ask.com, itss share of the search […]