Goodbye Ask.com: A Brand Evangelist Hangs It Up

I couldn’t agree more. Ask (and others) can try and spin things however they want, but the truth is the engine is dead, regardless of what today’s SEW article wants us to believe. It’s time to find a new underdog.

Hi Lisa, you know I feel your pain. Perhaps not to the same extent but it was definitely heartwrenching news. I think Kevin Newcomb’s note today on SEW that we are all jumping to conclusions is off base. Firing Gary Price and giving up on their momentum in mainstream search says it all… no matter how they spin it.
RIP ASK.

Ask was run by a ton of loser managers. The head of products was an ex-lawyer from Yahoo. His right hand man launched products that no-one cared about. A key engineering manager only worked at Ask and never had a job out of college anywhere else — so poor experience. The heads of engineering are still active professors at Rutgers. The turnover in the HQ engineering office was atrocious. They would hire and fire people in 6 months sometimes (and thats if they stayed that long). Gary was on the payroll, but with a very dubious role. As a consultant sure, but as a full time employee? Don’t know.

Safka [edited] up the communication internal and external. After 6 weeks on the job this is his great contribution…to go back to 1996?! Another 2-3% of the company resigned after layoffs. And do YOU want to work for a company that people describes at the search engine for desperate housewives?!! WTF?

[Edited for language — Lisa]

It’s a pity about ask.com. I never liked its old style but the new version i loved.

Very touching and emotional post. So much revolves around the bottom line for most companies today.

Hey Lisa, great post. I totally feel your pain. I have loved seeing all the changes with ask as of late and am very sad to see it end.

I used to love ask.com, back when I worked for it when it was Ask Jeeves, before the dot-com bubble burst. But I have to say, it has always suffered from the same problem that it has now: it couldn’t just stick with one identity.

It has always and repeatedly, over the years, sabotaged itself (or been sabotaged) by changing what the search engine provides, trying to expand into applications, expanding into creating mini-Asks for corporate customers, changing what the search engine does AGAIN, dropping everything it was doing, doing something else, dropping that, changing the function of the search engine AGAIN…

This isn’t new. It’s the hopefully-last, very sad thrash of a good concept yanked around by a really dysfunctional/abusive corporate structure.

Wow… Didn’t see this coming so quickly. I was just sitting with Patrick Crisp at SMX West and all seemed well.

I too have been an avid user of ASK over the past 6 months – there was a nice feeling and good quality experience as well – is it all really going down the drain ??

It’s definitely time to start looking at new engines, that’s for sure. My eyes are open.

I’d guess it will be some time before we see the changes go into full swing. So whats next for you Lisa, Mahalo?

@Dave Can I blame Barry Diller? I think it’s clear by this post and others that I’ve written that I do. He should have sold Ask to someone who wanted it a long time ago. Regardless of market share numbers, Teoma is perhaps the strongest algo out there. There’s potential there, and by neutering the engine and then leaving it there to die is doing Ask a great injustice.

I always thought ask was kind of worthless, since first using it in about 97-98. Can you blame barry diller? When you have shareholders wondering why you’re dumping money into a clear loser in a Google dominated industry, you have to cut bait and run.

Barry diller probably uses Google anyways. I don’t see what was so great about ask.com anyways.

You and me both Lisa. I am so sad to hear this, I rooted for Ask for so long. I remember being at SMX Advanced last year and witnessing the launch of the new Ask.com, with blended search that worked. It was to be the beginning of something great. I’m sorry that another big wig has gotten in the way of smart and gifted people again.

Man, don’t be so sad. I don’t think it’s a pure turning-back. The basic tech changed, and the infrastructure is still there. Actually, we need the Q/A search sometimes. :)

I think I just met Gary (not sure if it was him or someone else at SEOmoz’s table, when I dropped by) at SMX West … he was showing the Compete info they had integrated to their SERPs.
This is really sucky, as I’m writing a post on how we need diversity in search and was boosting Ask. Frikkin dumbass, short-term decision. If they want to lay off any part of the workforce it should be Diller.

Touching and outstanding post. Honestly, I didn’t think this would all go down so soon. I was thinking you’ll be sad sometime in the future with Ask. But it does make me look good that it happened a day after you said I was wrong. :)