Q & A with Jim Lanzone

A couple of days ago I posted a blog informing everyone that Jim Lanzone, the Senior VP of Ask Jeeves, was going to have a live Q & A session, this was according to Search Engine Roundtable. He did so over the weekend and apparently, is continuing to answer questions currently.

Some of the questions which I listed in the last blog are as follows (with Lanzone’s responses):

1. Whether Ask Jeeves abides by the “no follow” cue in links or whether it ignores this cue? (Lanzone sort of side-stepped on this one and said it should be taken up by different Ask Jeeves representatives)
2. To describe any operational difficulties Ask Jeeves has had in acquiring new properties such as DirectHit, Octopus Software, eTour, Teoma, etc. And what have the benefits been in bringing them on board?
   Lanzone’s response:

   Operationally, one reason these acquisitions went so well is because most brought something unique to the table. Teoma brought world-class search technology. Tukaroo brought Desktop Search. Bloglines brought the ability to “search, publish, share and subscribe” to blogs and newsfeeds. ISH itself is a massive business in its own right with Smiley Central, iWon, Excite, etc.

3. If there will be any free web-based email or IM programs from the Askjeeves.com website. Lanzone’s response:
   

   We have no plans to announce. I will say that we have developed an incredibly creative team the past few years, and we have ideas in just about every area of information retrieval and management you can think of. We don’t want to spaz out and just turn out product after product just to get headlines, nor do we want to offer something that isn’t an improvement over the status quo (e.g., email just for the sake of it). But where it makes strategic sense, and we can meet user needs, we will play in our own unique way.

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