Ask.com Ditches Search Engine Hopes
Ask.com has fired 8% of its staff and will quit its bid to become one of the search engine giants.
Despite a massive ad campaign and a ton of new features, Ask.com was never able to put a dent into the search engine market. At 4.5% market share, their investment did not yield the results they hoped for as Google, Yahoo, and Live Search dominated them.
Going forward, their plan is to retool the site back to its old “Ask Jeeves” roots by catering to married women in the south and midwest by creating an engine for finding recipes, health, and child care tips. The theory behind this change is to specifically target women who are the head of their household and make most of the financial choices in a family. This demographic gives Ask a narrower swath to attract advertisers.
Another reason Ask is going to target married women is the fact they are the only loyal users of Ask.com. Good memories from the Ask Jeeves era have lived on, primarily amongst women looking for simple answers to questions they might have.
Thanks to Michael Liedtke of the AP
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