The website Ask has surrendered in its effort to compete with Google and Yahoo for internet searches, opting instead to reinvent itself as a female-focused online query specialist. Ask, formerly known as Ask Jeeves, is laying off 40 people, 8% of its workforce.
The California-based company will concentrate on providing answers to questions about health, children's homework, recipes and hobbies.
"Everyone at Ask is excited about our clear focus and the trajectory-changing results it will deliver," said the company's chief executive, Jim Safka.
Founded in 1996, the site initially used a mock version of PG Wodehouse's know-all gentleman's gentleman, Jeeves, to serve up answers to users. But it pensioned off Jeeves last year and shortened its name to Ask.
It positioned itself as a search engine that would answer requests posed as natural language questions instead of being entered as a string of loosely related words.But it frequently misinterpreted requests and produced nonsensical answers that triggered widespread ridicule.
The venture was taken over by Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp for $2.3bn (£1.2bn) in 2005. After investing in more sophisticated technology, Ask tried to reposition itself as a cutting-edge alternative to Google and even dropped its cartoonish mascot in an effort to be taken more seriously. But, in spite of aggressive advertising campaigns, it has made little impact on the search leaders.
According to the research firm comScore, Ask had a 4.5% share of the 10.5bn internet searches that were carried out in the US in January, ranking it fourth behind Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Time Warner's sites.
Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research, suggested the new strategy could pay off because women make many of the household spending decisions, so are a valued target for advertisers.
"It's a smart move," she said. "I still think Ask has great technology, but it is just really hard to fight against Google."
Ask said 65% of its users were women, with a particularly high concentration of females in their late 30s in central regions of the US. In the broader search market, women typically account for 48% of users.
"If we can do a better job of understanding who these customers are and answering their questions, we will grow," said Safka.
