Ask.com 224
Ask.com
Ask.com
Type Search Engine
Founded 1996
HeadquartersOakland, California, US
Key people Garrett Gruener
David Warthen
(Founders)
Doug Leeds (CEO)
Industry Internet
Revenue US$227 million
Parent InterActiveCorp
Slogan |
Website Ask Jeeves [1]Alexa rank 51 (March 2012)[2]Registration OptionalScreenshotAsk (sometimes known as Ask Jeeves) is a Q&A focused search engine founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and
David Warthen in Berkeley, California. The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky from his own
design. Warthen, Chevsky, Justin Grant, and others built the early AskJeeves.com website around that core engine.
Three venture capital firms, Highland Capital Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, and The RODA Group were
early investors.[3] Ask.com is currently owned by InterActiveCorp under the NASDAQ symbol IACI. In late 2010,
facing insurmountable competition from Google, the company outsourced its web search technology to an
unspecified third party and returned to its roots as a question and answer site.[4] Doug Leeds was appointed from
president to CEO in January 2011.[5]History
Ask.com was originally known as Ask Jeeves, where "Jeeves" is the name of the "gentleman's personal gentleman",
or valet, fetching answers to any question asked. The character was based on Jeeves, Bertie Wooster's fictional valet
from the works of P. G. Wodehouse.
The original idea behind Ask Jeeves was to allow users to get answers to questions posed in everyday, natural
language, as well as traditional keyword searching. The current Ask.com still supports this, with added support for
math, dictionary, and conversion questions.