Ask Jeeves (NASDAQ:ASKJ)
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Ask Jeeves Acquires Bloglines
OAKLAND, Calif., Feb. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ask Jeeves(R), Inc.
(NASDAQ:ASKJ), a leading provider of information retrieval technologies, brands
and Internet advertising services, today announced it has acquired Trustic,
Inc., the company that owns and operates Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com/).
Bloglines is the world's most popular free online service for searching,
subscribing, publishing and sharing RSS feeds, blogs and rich web content.
Bloglines will continue to operate as an independent brand in the Ask Jeeves
portfolio and retain its name and unique URL: http://www.bloglines.com/.
"Bloglines is not only a market leader in feed aggregation and blog search, but
it is truly one of the most useful and addictive services on the entire Web. We
are excited about providing Bloglines with the resources to grow its service
and help it reach a broader audience," said Jim Lanzone, Ask Jeeves' senior
vice president of search properties. "Bloglines is a natural fit for our
multi-brand portfolio, as we extend our information retrieval services to
encompass the rapidly growing amount of dynamic content and information
available in the blogosphere."
Founded in 2003, Bloglines is a pioneer in bringing RSS (Really Simple
Syndication) feeds and rich content to mainstream Internet users. Recognized as
the leader in its category in terms of traffic, feature richness and ease of
use, Bloglines indexes more than 280 million live web content elements -- news
feed and blog articles, images, audio and video -- and is available in English,
Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. Bloglines has been
touted for excellence around the world with many awards and accolades,
including Time Magazine's 50 Coolest Websites for 2004.
"Bloglines became so popular because it was one of the first Web services to
make blog and RSS feed reading free and easy to understand for average Internet
users. We want to continue this quest to bring our exciting capabilities into
the mainstream," said Mark Fletcher, CEO of Bloglines. "By joining forces with
Ask Jeeves, we will be able to accelerate our growth with access to the
millions of unique visitors to Ask Jeeves' properties. And we are eager to take
advantage of Ask Jeeves' support, extensive resources, operational scale and
innovative technologies to expand and improve the services we deliver to
users." Fletcher will join Ask Jeeves as vice president and general manager of
Bloglines.
The acquisition brings together complementary technology assets, including
Bloglines' leading RSS aggregation capabilities and Ask Jeeves' world-class
Teoma algorithmic search technology. Ask Jeeves plans to leverage these
technologies across its search and portal brands, and as of today, Bloglines'
Web search capability will be powered by Ask Jeeves' search technology.
"The Ask Jeeves search advantage is based on world-class technical innovation
and a user-centric approach," continued Lanzone. "It is exciting to have the
opportunity to connect Bloglines' live information flow and blog search
capabilities with our unique indexing technology to provide consumers with one
of the most comprehensive and personal web experiences across all sources --
from the desktop to the Internet and, now, into the blogosphere."
Financial terms were not disclosed.
About Ask Jeeves, Inc.
Ask Jeeves, Inc. provides consumers and advertisers with information retrieval
products across a diverse portfolio of Web sites, portals and desktop search
applications. Ask Jeeves' search and search-based portal brands include: Ask
Jeeves (Ask.com and Ask.co.uk); Ask Jeeves Japan (Ask.jp, a joint venture); Ask
Jeeves for Kids (AJKids.com); Excite (excite.com); iWon (iwon.com); My Search
(mysearch.com); My Way (myway.com); My Web Search (mywebsearch.com) and Teoma
(teoma.com). Ask Jeeves also owns the search technology Teoma, proprietary
natural language processing technology, as well as portal and ad serving
technologies. In addition to powering several of the Ask Jeeves brands, the
Company syndicates its technologies to help companies increase revenue through
powerful search. Ask Jeeves' advertising division, AJinteractive, provides
advertisers with targeted tools to reach a broad base of valuable customers.
Ask Jeeves, Inc. is headquartered in Emeryville, California, with offices
throughout the United States, as well as in London, England and Dublin,
Ireland. For more information, visit http://www.ask.com/ or call 510-985-7400.
This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements
regarding the future are forward-looking statements, including those regarding
Bloglines' continued independent operations, provision of resources to it,
acceleration of Bloglines' audience growth, improvement of Bloglines' services,
and Ask Jeeves' plans to leverage Bloglines' technologies across its search and
portal brands. The forward-looking statements in this press release are subject
to numerous assumptions, risks and other uncertainties and are based on limited
information available to Ask Jeeves at this time, which is subject to change.
Ask Jeeves' actual results in the future might differ materially from
management's current expectations. Although management's expectations might
change after the date of this release, Ask Jeeves undertakes no obligation to
revise or update the statements above. The lack of any revision or update is
not meant to imply continued affirmation of those statements. Factors that
might cause or contribute to such differences and changes include, but are not
limited to: Ask Jeeves' dependence on a third- party paid placement provider;
the risk that acquisitions might not be integrated successfully; the risk of
further vertical consolidation in the Internet search and keyword advertising
markets; risks associated with rapid technological change; risks that
innovations by competitors might cause Ask Jeeves' user base to migrate to
other search engines, or that Ask Jeeves search volume might otherwise decline;
risks associated with relying on third parties for search toolbar distribution;
the risk that companies' internet advertising budgets might contract or grow at
a slower pace; Ask Jeeves' dependence on third parties for some types of
content, distribution and advertising delivery; potential lack of market
acceptance of Ask Jeeves' advertising products; introduction of new advertising
products or search technologies by competitors; declines in the average selling
price of Ask Jeeves' advertising products; and adverse economic conditions in
any of the major countries or markets in which Ask Jeeves does business or to
which its web content is targeted. As a relatively short announcement, this
press release cannot present a full discussion of such risks. Further
information on risk factors that could affect Ask Jeeves' financial results is
included in its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly
reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ask
Jeeves encourages investors to read all of the disclosures in its SEC filings
for a broader discussion of important factors that may be material to investors
and may affect Ask Jeeves' business, financial condition and results of
operations.
NOTE: Ask Jeeves, AJinteractive, Ask.com, Teoma, My Way, My Search, My Web
Search, iWon, Excite and Bloglines are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Ask Jeeves, Inc
DATASOURCE: Ask Jeeves, Inc.
CONTACT: Patrick Crisp of Ask Jeeves, Inc., +1-510-985-7696, or
; or Darcy Cobb of Dotted Line Comm., +1-310-472-8600, or
, for Ask Jeeves, Inc.; or Cathy Thompson of
Bloglines, +1-408-738-1395, or
Web site: http://www.bloglines.com/
Web site: http://www.ask.com/