Ask.com Answers the Question of How to Evolve

By Steven Bauer

CNN.com posted this news story this morning Ask.com gets a makeover, lays off 40.

Basically Ask.com is doing two things:

1. Laying off 40 people from the Ask.com side of the house
2. Taking a different approach, “. . .focus on a narrower market consisting of married women looking for help managing their lives”

The initial reaction I have heard from several people is, “WHAT? Are you kidding?”

My initial reaction is GOOD for Ask.com.

Even though they have said they will not be Google, or for that fact Yahoo! or Microsoft, the challenge for players in this ever-changing marketplace is how to set themselves apart from the other search engines. Ask.com has chosen their differentiating path – “focus on married women looking for help managing their lives.”

There are lots of search engines out there, but not a lot on the Tier 2 level with the brand recognition of Ask.com. Ask is seizing an opportunity to make a significant footprint in the world of search engines by defining and targeting a specific demographic.

What does this mean for Ask Sponsored Listings? Not much that I can see. Ask Sponsored Listings provides listings across the family of IAC properties, which cover a wide variety of demographics and, therefore, is still a viable solution for expanding the reach of search engine campaigns looking for more exposure at a cheaper cost.

Time will tell what effect today’s news will truly have on Ask.com, but I am betting on good things.