Ask Jeeves Acquires Bloglines
09 February 2005 - 12:01AM
PR Newswire (US)
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/
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