Jeeves is Getting the Axe

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

I guess the concept of job security can finally be laid to rest once and for all. I mean, if you have a site called “Ask Jeeves”and you are Jeeves, you figure you are pretty set in the job department. Not so, my innocent friends. Barry Diller shelled out $1.85 BILLION in May 2005 for the search site, but has decided to give Jeeves the boot. The reason, people were confused. I guess we don’t know what pasty, fat butlers are. (They actually tried a Jeeves makeover to slim him down and tan him - hoot!)

In a statement Ask said that over the last year it had been investigating user perceptions of the Jeeves character. Jeeves is named after the extraordinarily knowledgeable and helpful valet character created by celebrated comic novelist P G Wodehouse. However, Ask’s research revealed that Jeeves was getting in the way of people realising that the search site had changed and that it can handle many more types of queries than just straightforward questions. “As a result,” said the Ask statement, “the character may be phased out as the prominent icon of the brand, although no timeline or details have been determined.”

In line with a series of changes made to the Ask site last year, Jeeves got a makeover which saw him get slimmer and more tanned. In its statement Ask said that no decision had yet been made on the new brand name it will adopt to show how the search site had evolved. Source: BBC News via Digg

Our Question: Can the scary-looking MySimon be far behind?