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Aylin Savkan, VP of marketing at Ask Jeeves, said: "Jeeves has been finding solutions to millions of searches every day for the last four years. However, as our site evolves and updates, we felt that Jeeves too needed to take a break and a new look to personify the new, fresh and dynamic Ask Jeeves that we will launch on his return."
No Patrick, maybe they sent Jeeves to Elizabeth Arden. ;)
"Jeeves" needs an Estee Lauder "Make-Over" at the very least; a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon at best. The dude is just plain butt-ugly, he flat out needs help. Trust me. He does. I know these things - all women do. And "Jeeves" needs us a lot more than we need him!
How important is Ask Jeeves in the search engine world? [webmasterworld.com]
Notice what Warren quoted there about the demographics, that 60% of their searches are by women. That has to be a factor, that's what demographics are for. Is it possible they're trying to broaden the demographic, or that the particular 60% they've been appealing to with the image they've had doesn't have enough of the power of the plastic?
Putting it together with the timing of this,
Ask Jeeves stops Site Submit [webmasterworld.com]
being right before the Holiday shopping season, it looks like they're gearing up to gain more of a portion of market share for 4th quarter.
A contact of mine called Ask Jeeves the "soccer mom search engine", as most of his enquiries from Ask Jeeves are relating to products that generally appeal to women.
And the demographics I had quoted were from Jeeves own site located at [static.wc.ask.com...]
This has been updated and only quotes 55.1% since I last visted it.
Warren
[edited by: Warren at 1:17 am (utc) on Sep. 15, 2004]
"soccer mom search engine"
lol - that's what an old boss of mine calls MSN.
I certainly don't LOL. While, I'm not the average surfer obviously, I have been noticing this trend with my friends - many are doing more and more of their holiday shopping online - avoids the lines, the crowds and if one store doesn't have an item, no need to drive to another.
"soccer mom search engine"
With 45% of their users being male, I don't think theres enough "female dominance" to really say that.
62% of those who use Ask Jeeves strongly agree with the statement** "The Internet is the easiest/most convenient way of shopping"
No matter the primary gender, it seems their users are packing plastic and ready to buy.
Wonder what changes Ask will make on the 21st. I hope that it is easier to reach the Teoma search results - I feel that Teoma have some of the best results out there (sometimes) - however you have to wade through so many sponsored results first.
Main points in the email:
* Major redesign to be seen Sept 21 (next Tue)
* New look-and-feel for both .com and .uk sites - including a makeover for the butler
* New features - possibly some personalization functions
* New local search, developed with Citysearch and launched yesterday with no fanfare
* No major increase in marketing budget
* The goal is increased usage, through differentiation from Google, Yahoo! and MSN
* They don't expect the redesign to impact pricing/yield rates, but rather to increase volume
Jeeves is also planning other changes for later in the year:
(1) new desktop search, using recently acquired technology from Tukaroo
(2) new Teoma search algo, aiming for a bigger index and cleaner results
[edited by: tedster at 5:04 pm (utc) on Sep. 16, 2004]
[edit reason] paraphrase email [/edit]
