AskJeeves Fires Its Butler, Speeds Up Web Search February 27, 2006: "The new Ask.com features a toolbox that helps users refine more types of searches with the first click of their mouse for maps, images, dictionaries, weather, or documents stored on their computers.

By Reuters
InformationWeek

Feb 27, 2006 08:02 AM


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The loyal butler is gone.
AskJeeves.com said on Monday that it has retired Jeeves, its mascot servant, and will now answer the door simply as Ask.com, adopting a self-service approach for users looking for a focused way to search the Web beyond guessing keywords.
The new Ask.com features a slick, do-it-yourself toolbox that helps users refine more types of searches with the first click of their computer mouse for maps, images, dictionaries, weather, local info or documents stored on their computers.
Users can select from up to 20 different types of specialized search tools Ask.com has developed. Later this year, Ask will encourage outside developers to build tools to perform more specialized searches, the company said.
More popular rival search sites from Google, Yahoo or MSN require multiple clicks to reach such specialized information.
'Other engines just do 10 blue links and ads around them. We have really gone a lot further,' Jim Lanzone, general manager of Ask.com, said in an interview.
'Users are going to experience a search engine that does more for them faster than any other search engine they use.'
AskJeeves, the fourth most popular U.S. Internet search site, started out in 1996 by promising concrete answers to questions posed by Web users. Jeeves, the butler character, was meant to symbolize this theoretically better form "