Ask Jeeves loves Grouper
p2pnet.net News:- Ask Jeeves is after p2p application Grouper. At least, that’s what Om Malik believes, reports Search Engine Journal, going on:
“With Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp planning on buying up web properties (MySpace.com) and search engines such as Blinkx (rumored), what we may see developing is a second tier search property acquisition war as IAC and News Corp fight hand over fist to secure the interest of a young and web active audience.
Meanwhile, “If you are fourth place search engine, behind industry behemoths like Google, Yahoo and MSN the big question is how do you grow your traffic?” asks Malik on his broadband blog.
Ask Jeeves faces that dilemma, he says, and “One way would be to think different, and look for niche market opportunities before your bigger brethren wake up and capitalize on that. Snapping up Bloglines was a good move – it got them new users, more traffic and opened up a new search opportunity – RSS search.
“So what’s next? My sources tell me that Ask Jeeves has struck up a deal with P2P social sharing company, Grouper. Apparently, a co-branded Grouper client will be made available by Ask Jeeves.”
Malik goes on that the client will “embed Ask Jeeves desktop search, and web search. Ask Jeeves will also be able to show text-ads in this client, making it a possible revenue generator. From what I understand, the client will also have the ability to do search local folders not on your desktop, but also on the folders that are shared by those in your network. This would be a nice way to leap-up in the desktop search business for Ask Jeeves, especially if News Corp decides to buy Blinkx and put its resources behind the tiny company. I am yet to hear back from both companies.”
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See:-
Grouper – The Grouper Exception: II, October 5, 2004
Search Engine Journal – Ask Jeeves Interested in Grouper File Sharing, August 23, 2005
broadband blog – Ask Jeeves, what’s Grouper, August 20, 2005
