How Ask Jeeves blew it

The early search engine had a beloved brand and prescient goals. Then it trashed them—right before they might really have gone places.

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Upon hearing of a celebrity’s death, have you ever been startled to realize that they hadn’t left us long ago? That happened to me last weekend. Except the dearly departed in question wasn’t a person, but a company: Ask.com, the web property forever better known by its original brand, Ask Jeeves.

For years, I wrote about Ask quite regularly. But when its owner, media conglomerate IAC (which........

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