IAC’s search site Ask.com has tried numerous incarnations to capture some of the traffic and advertising gold possessed by Google (NSDQ: GOOG). Last year, it tried coupons. Before that, it promised more relevance, more engagement and less clicks. This time, it’s going back to its “Ask Jeeves” roots, with answers…

In case you didn’t get it the first few times, yes, IAC (NSDQ: IACI) Chairman and CEO Barry Diller still believes the search market will consolidate—and no, he isn’t trying to make it happen. He told analysts on the Q4 IAC earnings call: “I don’t know what form that consolidation…

Another profitable quarter for IAC (NSDQ: IACI) (that’s two in a row) aided by $35 million in gains from the sale OpenTable shares and Match Europe, and by lower corporate costs compared to the spinoff numbers last year. Even without the gains, IAC still beat the Thomson First Call consensus…

Jim Safka is stepping down as CEO of Ask.com, the WSJ reports, and we have confirmed. Safka took the reins last January, replacing Jim Lanzone right in the midst of parent company IAC’s massive restructuring. In a letter to staff, Safka maintained that the decision was based on personal reasons:…

Poor Ask.com. Nobody seems to have noticed that the IAC-owned search engine already had several of the features that its bigger competitors rolled out to acclaim last week. So, in a blog post, Ask.com’s vice president of technology tries to set the historical record straight. Keith Hogan first takes on…

A busy 24 hours at IAC (NSDQ: IACI) ... we wrote earlier about the pending soft launch of Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast and now yet another update from search engine Ask.com, going live now with its “next generation.” Goals include reducing searches to one click and providing direct answers…

As IAC (NSDQ: IACI) attempts to buildup Ask.com, it’s made a point of de-emphasizing syndicated search in favor of higher-yield organic search. Doug Anmuth touched on that in the report we discussed this morning. But it’s not going to stop doing these deals. The company announced that it’s now powering…

Losing its independence on Independence Day, Lexico is now part of the Ask.com family, as IAC’s (NSDQ: IACI) portal completes its purported $100 million cash acquisition of the Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com operator. Announcing the completion, which had been expected in Q3, Ask.com Jim Safka: “The combination… significantly expands our…

Turns out Ask.com has the answers for Lexico Publishing, the owner of Dictionary.com which earlier agreed to be acquired by Answers.com (NSDQ: ANSW) in a doomed effort. The IAC (NSDQ: IACI) subsidiary isn’t disclosing the price of the all-cash transaction but, according to a source familiar with the situation, it’s…

Strange are the motivations of Ask: First it clearly states that it will now focus on its core audience of married women, and now it says that’s not necessarily going to happen to the extent previously reported. And Ask says an AAp story got it wrong, when everyone else including…

IAC-owned search engine Ask.com is planning to lay off 40 workers or 8 percent of its total workforce, CEO Jim Safka tells Reuters. That’s below the 100-or-so we reported on Friday; the job cuts are expected to come some time in April. The layoffs come amid a strategic reevaluation at…

A source has confirmed to us a coming shakeup at IAC-owned Ask.com that includes about 100 layoffs in the April time frame. SAI reported this morning that the site may pull the plug on its own search efforts, and instead power itself with Google (NSDQ: GOOG) search, a la *AOL*.…

Couple of short video interviews for a more relaxed Friday (RSS readers will have to click through): 1) From Folio: an interview with Meredith (NYSE: MDP) president Jack Griffin, on the company’s fight to stay relevant: 2) From ATD: an interview with former Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone on the future…

Another effort from IAC (NSDQ: IACI) search company Ask.com to stand out from the crowd ... the launch Tuesday of “AskEraser,” a new privacy control that will allow users to purge search requests not from their own computers but from the search company’s computers within hours. Usually the major search…