Gawker
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search
Why Pamela Anderson can't beat Google
Remember AltaVista? The search engine, long swallowed up by Yahoo, once hired professional trashy babe Pamela Anderson to win our affections. What that terrible TV ad tells us: TV ads don't build Web brands.
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By Owen ThomasComment by incrediblehelp: The best ones were the Hot Bot commercials: [www.jaankanellis.com] more » | Other threads
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crime
San Francisco man risks life for iPhone
Gene Wood, an operations manager at Ask.com, the Barry Diller-owned search engine beloved by Midwestern moms, wrestled a mugger to the ground rather than lose his iPhone, for which he paid $499. While riding on a subway train in San Francisco and watching a movie, Wood felt a hand reach behind him and snatch the phone. Wood, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 240 pounds, jumped from his seat and pursued the thief. Here's his harrowing account of how he got his iPhone back through hand-to-hand combat — and got away with just one small, if nasty, head wound: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by pepelicious: It's called BART. If people in NYC can't figure out it's a "subway" that's their problem. 8 Responses | Other threads
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search
Is Ask.com feeling lucky?
Ask.com's latest revamp, unveiled by CEO Jim Safka to the New York Times, attempts to dive deeper into the Web, pulling "structured data," a fashionable buzzword, from sources like TV listings and health databases. Give Barry Diller's scrappy search engine, owned by his IAC conglomerate, this much: When at first it doesn't succeed, it tries, tries, tries again. But you can't blame the market, or users, for finding all this trying, well, trying. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by ILikeThemBig: I'd like to blame Barry for something. How about for spending nearly 2 billion on the fourth ranked search... more » | Other threads
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sex trade
How a Stanford grad flunked the escort test
Geeks always think they will trick the system by being smart. They fail. It's no different when intensely brainy women take up escorting over the Internet, like Stanford Law graduate Cristina Warthen, in court this month facing federal tax evasion charges. As sophisticated as the sex trade is, there's still no magic solution for how to hide the money. The Feds claim Warthen hid cash in a safe-deposit box, her apartment, a storage locker, and even law-school textbooks they found in the trash. I've watched clients nerd out over this on message boards for years, trying to come up with the foolproof plan. There isn't one. More »
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Comment by sample032: So you hold onto cash or gold for 6 years, the statute of limitations is up, and you're golden, but... 1 Responses | Other threads
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earnings
IAC down more than half a billion in second quarter
In the second quarter, IAC swung from a $94.6 million profit last year to a $421.6 million loss this year. Don't blame Jakob Lodwick! His former company, Vimeo, is nowhere near the top of IAC/InterActiveCorp's expense report for the past quarter. The real problem at Barry Diller's Internet empire is Cornerstone Brands, a rollup of catalog companies undermined by weak consumer spending in home and apparel retail. Cornerstone's losses led to a $300 million writedown in goodwill in IAC's second quarter. In addition, the soft real estate market cut revenue for home financing site LendingTree nearly in half. More » -
acquisitions
Ask.com buys reference site Lexico
Lexico, the company behind reference sites like Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, has been acquired by also-ran search engine Ask.com, a unit of Barry Diller's IAC, for an undisclosed sum. It will mean an 11 percent boost in traffic for Ask and more revenue for Lexico's sites, as Google had cut a special deal with IAC for a higher revenue share than it would give to the likes of Dictionary.com. Possibly tipping their hand about future moves, Ask CEO Jim Safka told the AP the site was also looking to improve results related to health and entertainment, presumably through more acquisitions. The move comes after IAC's Barry Diller settled a fight with Liberty's John Malone, a major IAC shareholder, over plans to split the company into five different parts.
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By Jackson WestComment by vulturesquadron: @narnio: My problem is IAC is just based on their silly approach of creating a conglomerate of decent companies that... more » | Other threads
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caption contest
Chadrick loves Diana, and the feeling is mutual
The act that first brought Chadrick Baker, virtual-worlds advocate and lover of love, to our attention was his declaration of romantic fealty to four Valley foxes. Bad news for Sarah Meyers, Amanda Lorenzani, and Sarah Lacy: Baker has found his feelings for Ask.com art director Diana Furka requited. Before declaring their feelings, the two pursued a platonic paternship on a website, Oddistry.com. Good luck, you crazy kids! As for the rest of you, can you think of a better caption for mascot and mate? Suggest one in the comments, and it will become the new headline. Yesterday's winner: "You mean this isn't the Facebook prom?" by dannyisme.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Owen Thomas: There is no winner, which I suppose makes you all losers. more » | Other threads
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chadrick baker
Valleywag mascot touts computerized beaver at Maker Faire
Chadrick Baker, Valleywag's mascot, has been suspiciously silent lately. I'd just started to worry that he'd disappeared into a virtual world once and for all when he popped up to let me know he and Ask.com's Diana Furka had posted a new video on Oddistry.com. Thank goodness! Learn about the compubeaver and the emerging popularity of "steampunk" in this episode. Check out the end, where Furka touts her employer's search engine. As a marketing strategy, it makes slightly more sense than trying to find Jesus.
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By Owen ThomasComment by raincoaster: Oh, Jesus, the compubeaver has been around so long it's not even steampunk; it's just antique. Didn't it run Windows... more » | Other threads
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don't be latino
Google doesn't care about Mexican people
Ask.com bungled the spelling of Cinco de Mayo, but at least they made an effort. Pictured here are Yahoo's animated mariachis and dancers. But Google, the company well known for its holiday flights of logo fancy? Nada. Yes, it's actually a minor holiday south of the border. But the victory in Puebla over the French has gone unnoticed in the Googleplex for the ninth year running. More »
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By Jackson WestComment by yef: Actually, the holiday is bigger in the US than in Mexico. [en.wikipedia.org] more » | Other threads
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search
IAC wants black people to love Rushmore Drive
Barry Diller's IAC is throwing a launch party in New York tonight for new portal Rushmore Drive, which includes an Ask-based search engine manicured to appeal to African-Americans. Fast Company senior editor and blogger Lynne D. Johnson managed to sneak an early screenshot and some marketing messaging online. The project, launched at IAC's typically glacial pace, has been in the works for a year, and IAC plans to target other niche demos in the future, Johnson reports. According to the latest data from Pew Internet, 56 percent of African-Americans use the Internet. Might be a good place for Google to post some job listings.
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By Jackson WestComment by Jackson West: The generally accepted linguistic term is African-American Vernacular English, and it's just one of dozens of English vernaculars, dialects and... more » | Other threads
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valleywag mascot
Chadrick loves helping Diana Furka launch tech blog Oddistry.com
Our new Valleywag mascot, Chadrick Baker, first came to our attention by announcing his love for the tech girls of Silicon Valley. Now he's ventured beyond love into selfless devotion. Ask.com art director Diana Furka has launched a new tech-culture videoblog, Oddistry. Baker is helping produce. I asked Baker whether Oddistry.com was anything like JakobandJulia.com, the ill-fated relationship blog of Vimeo founder Jakob Lodwick and reality-TV hopeful Julia Allison. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Dweezil: @Alaska Miller: I've seen two photos of her and she looked pretty hot in both, so I don't know. more » | Other threads
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strategery
You're not the only one confused about Ask; so are employees
Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported Ask.com would become a search engine for midwestern women. But now the "Marge Simpson Plan" — as our Ask tipster calls it — is off. Apparently, Ask CEO Jim Safka changed his mind over the weekend and executives spent all day Sunday scrambling to put together a new plan. Our tipster blames the confusion on Safka's secretive nature, telling us that when he comes into work his office door is always closed. The silence has once loyal employee feeling apathetic and looking for jobs elsewhere.
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Comment by Tencor: In the all-hands on Tue, he still showed Marge Simpson as the new target. She was all over his presentation.... more » | Other threads
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exits
Barry Diller: I could be gone in a week
Barry Diller's battle with Liberty Media head John Malone for control over IAC could be over in a week, Diller told a crowd at a Variety event yesterday. "It's very odd that two people who don't want to give up control of anything are giving control to a judge in Delaware," he said. "The wonderful thing about Delaware is they do it quickly. They make a decision quickly." Some shareholders might wish for the same alacrity from Diller.
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Comment by ILikeThemBig: @sggrf: Why on earth would you fel bad for IAC? "Pretty bad," you say? For whom? ... more » | Other threads
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the chart
While bloggers fret, Google's market share grows larger
Depending on which search-engine marketing firm you believe, Google either had a really good month monetizing is search traffic, or a really poor one. It's so confusing! Seeing HitWise's search market share numbers from the month, I bet competitors Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com are glad they didn't have to worry about having all that traffic. -
layoffs
Ask.com cuts jobs, targets housewife demographic
As Barry Diller curtails both Ask.com's ambitions and its workforce, his hired hand is turning it into the Home Shopping Network of search engines. CEO Jim Safka says 65 percent of its users are female with a high concentration in their late 30s in the Midwest and Southeast. In an attempt to try to get also-ran search site back on track, Safka is laying off eight percent of Ask's employees and "reevaluating" its strategy. "Everything we do will be put through this strategic filter," he says. At last, a search engine that plays in Peoria. The only problem is that even Midwestern housewives know how to Google.
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Comment by jerr: wow! looks like ask might as well get its butler back on: they are back to 1999. full circle.... more » | Other threads
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videogames
Search isn't working, so Diller tries another flooded market
As his search engine Ask.com inches toward irrelevance, besieged IAC CEO Barry Diller has found another crowded market to pour cash into: videogames. According to Variety, Diller plans to invest $50 million to $100 million of IAC's money on InstantAction, a new site from recently acquired IAC subsidiary GarageGames. GarageGames doesn't develop games quite so "casual" as the type Mark Pincus's Zynga produces, but the venture's product will still be Internet-based games made for those who don't want to waste time in front of a TV. Just like everyone else in the market, only a year or two later.
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Comment by curthopkins: Yes, some of the other commenters are quite right. This is hardly PopCap. We see InstantAction as being easy to... more » | Other threads
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iac
Ask.com layoff whispers grow yet louder
Is the ax falling at Ask.com? "There is indeed a big shakeup coming," a tipster tells Silicon Alley Insider, seeming to corroborate layoff rumors we reported earlier.Some think a reduction in workforce is likely. There are no sacred cows, [Ask's proprietary search technology] may be sold or simply abandoned which is hundreds of engineers who work on the core search engine, in place of just using Google's search with our special brand of user interface.
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Comment by WillVille: It's not all that bad of an idea (although I'd just prefer them to fix their search engine). I love... more » | Other threads
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rumormonger
Layoff rumors stir the herd at Ask.com
"This place was buzzing today that there will be layoffs here soon," an Ask.com employee tips us off. The tipster complains that since completing "a bunch of tests for new ways to make money, no one in my group has seen or heard from management [since] they had a pizza lunch the first week of January." It's the second Ask layoff rumor we've heard this month. More »
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Comment by WillVille: I like Barry, but I don't think I've ever got a desireable search result from ask.com... Ever! more » | Other threads
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stats
Google up, Yahoo down in U.S. search share
ComScore's January 2008 search rankings are out. Google, AOL and Ask.com had slight share gains at the expense of Yahoo. Search queries were up significantly across the board with Ask and AOL as the big gainers. Here's the chart: More »
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Comment by xxyyzz71: Hmm .. Nielsen reports both Goog and Yahoo up in Jan 08. See [www.bizjournals.com] more » | Other threads
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valley sex legends
So I married a Stanford-brained escort
Stanford's new financial aid policy, had it gone into effect a bit sooner, might have killed the Valley's own Pretty Woman story: David Warthen, cofounder of Ask.com, married alleged Stanford Law escort Cristina "Brazil" Shultz just four months after Schultz's assets — $61,000 in cash — were seized by the government. From her postings on escort's clients' review boards, bragging of paying off student loans with her new night job, the IRS deduced she must have a lot of unpaid taxes: At $1,300 per two-hour "modeling" appointment, $5,000 for "overnight," and over 80 men claiming they'd been her clients — hey, do the math. After becoming her husband, Warthen was able to convince the Feds that the money was a gift from him, meant as "a benefit for the both of them". Talk trash if you must, but since they likely met on the job, Warthen is telling the truth. Carry on, Jeeves! (Photo by RM Studios)
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Comment by Patricia2: No, I really think it's hot. I'm like this with smart men. They can look like shit, and I'll be... more » | Other threads
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rumormonger
More heads to roll at IAC?
A tipster tells us to expect a "big shakeup at Ask.com," including "change in product lineup and company direction." The shakeup "could effect CA and NJ office, Lots of SVP, EVP, VP, CTO types that probably are redundant." It's a vague and poorly sourced rumor, but with IAC and its chairman Barry Diller already under siege, such a shakeup certainly is plausible. Especially since — judging by M&A exec Jason Rapp, who was recently transferred to unspecified new duties — it may have already begun. -
steve berkowitz
Microsoft demotes poached Ask.com CEO
Steve Berkowitz is out as senior vice president of Microsoft's Online Services Group, BoomTown reports. In April 2006, Microsoft lured Berkowitz away from Ask.com, where he was CEO, and charged him with running MSN's ad sales, marketing, and business development. Yep, all the stuff that's failed bad enough that Microsoft now wants to pay $44.6 billion for Yahoo. BoomTown said sources couldn't confirm whether Berkowitz is out of the company or just out his job.
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Comment by michaellamb: at first I thought it was a high school pic of mike arrington more » | Other threads
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social news
Ask.com news site shows why Digg can't deal
IAC's Ask.com launched its Digg-infused answer to Google News today. But there's surprisingly little evidence of help from Digg in Ask's Big News, despite the project's all-too-long time spent in development. Why is that? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by WillVille: This came out of IAC... And I actually like it... Somebody pinch me! more » | Other threads
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social news
IAC's plan to clone Digg unfolds
Digg and IAC's Ask.com search engine are getting close to launching an Ask-branded version of the popular headline-voting site. We'd heard in December that the two companies were working together. Indeed, the delay in the project's launch may have contributed to Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone's ouster. Without Lanzone, the project is continuing. IAC's hiring a general manager to run an unspecified website — which could well be the Digg-like news site. -
feuds
The fight between John Malone and Barry Diller is getting brutal. As Diller prepares to spin off several businesses, leaving a company focused on the Oakland-based Ask.com search engine, Malone's Liberty Media has asked a court to remove Diller from IAC's board and allow Liberty to appoint several board members, in an effort to seize control of the company. Liberty owns 30 percent of IAC, and holds 62 percent of the voting rights, but an agreement allows Diller to vote Liberty's shares, giving him effective control of the company. [WSJ] -
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Comment by Kounji: I swear I'm a geek because I totally know all the damn references and I thought all the caricatures were... more » | Other threads
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jim lanzone
Barry Diller cuts the fat
Working for Barry Diller is a harrowing experience. Just take a look at Jim Lanzone, the former CEO of Ask.com, before he joined IAC, and after. Even so, we're reconsidering our sympathetic view of Lanzone. We hear that one big reason he was fired was the slipping schedule on an Ask.com news site. Despite putting 20 people nearly full-time on the project, and getting help from Digg, Lanzone missed a December deadline for the site, now slated for a February launch.
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By Owen ThomasComment by AskFan: Jim Lanzone has been managing the whole show (Oakland, Jersey, London, Pisa) for years - long before he took the... more » | Other threads
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exits
At Ask.com, Barry Diller fires another entrepreneur
Bloody Diller. IAC's Ask.com has a new CEO, Jim Safka, who was swiftly installed in the place of Jim Lanzone. Lanzone was fired by Barry Diller, according to sources. And so yet another talented entrepreneurial type makes way for a Diller yes-man. The cover story is that Lanzone left to accept a position as entrepreneur-in-residence at Redpoint Ventures — a cozy, face-saving sort of holding tank for CEOs in between jobs. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by mwang: You didn't mention entrepreneur Charles Conn, who brought Diller into CitySearch as the majority shareholder in 1997 while Conn was... more » | Other threads
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stats
Ask, Yahoo, Microsoft and others tried really hard this year to gain on search leader Google. They failed. AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft all dropped in share. Ask gained 0.1 percent. Google? Up as much as 6 percent, depending on whom you ask. Google also had larger gains in terms of total search queries, up 37 percent. Those Stanford kids are onto something. [AdAge] -
crash this bash
Ask.com holiday party tonight at the Independent
Barry Diller likes to talk up how New Yorky his Manhattan-headquartered IAC is, but in fact, his most important online businesses are based in California, like Ask.com. San Francisco-area IAC workers are having their holiday party tonight at the Independent, 628 Divisadero St. "Bonus points to anyone who videos themselves gaining entry as Vimeo staff wearing their best American Apparel hoodie and art-skool glasses," says a Grinch of a tipster.
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By Owen ThomasComment by lucifugus: Personally, I'd rather go to The Independent tomorrow night: Von Iva is rocking the house. more » | Other threads
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your privacy is an illusion
AskEraser fails to erase anything important
Put your tinfoil hats back on, folks. IAC's search engine Ask.com has announced a new feature called AskEraser, as expected. It's supposed to be a privacy control allowing users to delete their queries from Ask's server logs, a move meant to set Ask apart in the market. But it won't really do either. Like Ask's television commercials, AskEraser is at once ineffective and confounding. Here's why. More » -
china
All of a sudden Barry Diller's a rice queen?
While Facebook goes around denying rumors about deals in China, IAC chairman Barry Diller is telling anybody who will listen about his plans for Asian expansion. Diller told reporters this morning that IAC will spend $100 million in China, and bring over its Ask.com search engine, too. This will raise IAC's Chinese investments to $300 million. (Photo by AP/Elaine Thompson) -
breaking
Ask.com inks $3.5 billion ad deal with Google
In the midst of a call laying out IAC's plans to break up into five separate companies, CEO Barry Diller announced that he'd struck a five-year deal with Google to carry its search ads on Ask.com, an arrangement he says will be worth $3.5 billion. As we'd reported, Diller had little choice but to go with Google, since its competition likely couldn't afford to offer equally lucrative terms. -
earnings
IAC does not get what it was looking for
IAC, Barry Diller's online conglomerate, reported $1.5 billion in third-quarter revenues, a 7 percent increase over year prior. Profits, however, decreased 4.2 percent year-over-year, from $74.9 million to $71.8 million. IAC's media and advertising division, which includes Ask.com, grew its revenues to $189.8 million, 40 percent growth over the third quarter in 2006. Please God, don't make this mean more commercials about "the algorithm." -
search
Google in control of Ask.com, not Diller
With time running out on an advertising deal with Google, Barry Diller's Ask.com is facing bigger issues than the company's painfully unmemorable advertising. The IAC-owned search engine is dependent on Google-brokered text ads for a large portion of its revenues — but Google, which now sells ads on MySpace, among others, is not nearly as dependent on Ask.com. Fortunately for Diller, Microsoft and Yahoo are stupidly eager to prove themselves in the search-advertising market. If Google does end its ad deal with Ask.com, both companies would be happy to sign on Ask as a partner. One small problem: Neither Yahoo nor Microsoft make as much money per search as Google, which means that they have less money to split with Ask, even if they give it a more generous share. And a deal with either one would still leave Ask dependent on a rival search engine. Save for building its own advertising system, at considerable expense, Ask has no easy way out of the Google deal.
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By Tim FaulknerComment by waynelambright: Distill it down and you get "Ask google for help" more » | Other threads
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search
Barry Diller's IAC/InterActive Corp. launched a revamped iWon.com portal. The search engine, acquired along with Ask.com, has always drawn visitors by offering prizes. But it now promises more prizes, a social network and a more explicit link to IAC's Ask.com search engine. I, for one, am excited to have the opportunity to never visit the new site as much as I did the old one. [TechCrunch] -
search
Google's rivals have happy customers — just not enough of them
Competitors' efforts have failed to dent Google's search market share. A survey of customer satisfaction paints a different picture — which just goes to show you that it's not, as Google likes to claim, all about the users. The newly released American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) from the University of Michigan has Yahoo regaining its lead over Google with an increase of 3.9 points, while Google fell 3.7 points. ACSI attributes the improvements to Yahoo's ratings to well-received design and feature enhancements. Ask.com experienced the biggest improvement, jumping 5.6 points, leaving it tied with Microsoft's MSN. More »
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By Tim FaulknerComment by Ron-Mexico: As a user, I actually kind of agree with those results. Google's got some great stuff, but the average... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
With Ask.com ad, CNET redefines "sponsored results"
When not focused on Jesus, privacy is the cornerstone of the Ask.com campaign — it's the second-tier search engine's only hope for gaining ground on Google. So it's not entirely surprising that CNET ranks it as the most secure search engine. But by eerie coincidence, CNET was also serving an Ask.com ad right next to the chart that proclaims Ask the privacy king. That's what we call a-squidge-too-targeted marketing.
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Comment by Davion: Second-tier? Ask.com is like fourth-tier, after Yahoo and then Microsoft. The company is a fucking joke. more » | Other threads
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search
Ask.com, the website for paranoid delusionists
Since Google began openly logging your search history, navigating the Internet has become an ever-creepier proposition. Anonymity, for the most part, is feigned. Your privacy is an illusion. And with behavioral marketing seen as the holy grail of online advertising, it won't be long before someone rips open and sells your history of search requests — it'd be as exposing as, say, revealing the racier parts of your Netflix queue. This site's editor, for example, certainly doesn't want Google knowing how often he searches for topless photos of Jakob Lodwick. (Oh puhleeze. So not my type. -Ed.) More » -
google
comScore released its May figures on search engine traffic today, showing that Google has grown to handle 50.7% of all keyword searches. Another thing to note: Traffic to IAC's Ask.com search engine declined from April, when they began their latest ad campaign. [Barron's]
valleywag
San Francisco, 4:01 AM
Fri Jul 10
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