Week 07 - IAC business, Media & Advertising

Ask.com

Ask.com was originally known as Ask Jeeves, where "Jeeves" is the name of the "gentleman's personal gentleman", or valet, fetching answers to any question asked. The original idea behind Ask Jeeves was to allow users to get answers to questions posed in everyday natural language. Ask.com was the first commercial question-answering search engine for the World Wide Web. On September 23, 2005 the company announced plans to phase out Jeeves and on February 27, 2006 the character was disassociated with Ask.com. Since the name change, the site resembles the

Ask.com companies
Within Ask.com, the company owns country specific sites for UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, and Spain along with Ask For Kids.

Traffic
The combined traffic to these web sites places Ask.com in the top ten parent web companies in the US.

AskEraser
It allows users to opt-out from tracking of search queries, IP and cookie values. They also vowed to erase this data after 18 months if the AskEraser option is not set.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
RSS feeds


Citysearch

Citysearch is a local online search service, providing information on businesses in the categories of dining, entertainment, retail, travel, and other professional services in cities throughout the United States. Visitors to Citysearch's local city guides will find contact information, maps, driving directions, editorial, and user reviews for the businesses listed.

In 1999, Citysearch acquired the competing Sidewalk.com website from Microsoft, and merged the two sites together.

Citysearch has been recently criticized for their alleged tampering of user submitted ratings and reviews.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
contact information, maps, driving directions, editorial, and user reviews


Evite

Evite is a social-planning website for creating, sending, and managing online invitations. It was launched in 1998. The website is a free, advertisement-supported service.

Party planning tools
Party Budget Estimator, Party Checklist, Drink Calculator, Party Menus + Recipes

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
User interactive party planning tools


Insider Pages

Insider Pages is an online local search company that aggregates consumer reviews on neighborhood merchants. The company has over 600,000 reviews of local merchants around the country.

In press coverage, the company has distanced itself from other social networking companies that target the "YouTube generation" by arguing that it serves a very different demographic: young and middle-aged families who own homes in urban and suburban areas.

After laying off 2/3 of their total staff in January 2007, they were later acquired by CitySearch in March 2007.

Best known features
Multiple reviews per business, "Best of" lists, "Insider Advice", Mapping capabilities, "Helpful" / "Not Helpful" / "Must Read" markings

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
reviews, lists, maps


Bloglines

Bloglines is a web-based news aggregator.

Features
On July 23, 2007, Bloglines released an iPhone version of their site.

It offers an application programming interface that can be used to write software that can read feeds, search its database of feed entries, and ping the service when a blog has been updated. beta site more on features

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
RSS feeds, mobile connectivity


iwon

iwon is a free casual game site and web portal that offers the chance to win cash and prizes through online games and ad links.

Activities on the website earn entries into daily, weekly, monthly cash sweepstakes and other giveaways. For example, performing an internet search earns 30 coins and clicking a link earns five. Entries earned are automatic and are limited to 100 per day. The site is most known for awarding one prize of $1 million annually.

In October 2007, they announced that they had given out $70,320,450 in prizes to more than 275,976 winners.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
Games


Excite

Excite is an Internet portal, and as one of the "dotcoms" of the 1990s.

It resembles other search engines, but it offers customizable menus according to the user's needs.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
RSS Feed


My Way

My Way is a web portal offering a number of news, shopping, e-mail and web services.

It has partnered with the Internet's leading search providers - Google, Ask.com, Yahoo! and LookSmart - to feature the world's best search engine along with our full portal offering...all without banners, pop-ups, video ads, direct marketing and privacy concerns.

Customizable user interface resembles Excite.com. It offers browser tool bar which is considered as a spyware.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
RSS Feed


Smiley Central

Smiley Central is a website which offers free-add-on program to a web browser - which allows users to input smiley faces emoticon on IMs, Emails & Blogs.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
Image archives of smiley faces


Zwinky

Zwinkies are customizable social avatars that are part of the MyWeb Searchbar on computers running Windows. A user creates a non-animated cardboard-like character (a Zwinky) to represent himself or herself in any networking site or blog that supports Zwinkies. When users change the appearance of said Zwinkies, all sites in which that avatar is currently displayed will update accordingly.

Zwinky is currently advertised on social networking sites such as MySpace, along with television shows and networks which target young audiences.

MyWeb Searchbar is considered as spyware.

Possible database / User interactivity for the wall:
Customizable avatar