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
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SOURCE Ask Jeeves, Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.ask.com
CONTACT:
Patrick Crisp of Ask Jeeves, Inc.,
+1-510-985-7696, or patrick@askjeeves.com; or Darcy Cobb of
Dotted Line Comm., +1-310-472-8600, or darcy@dottedlinecomm.com,
for Ask Jeeves, Inc.; or Cathy Thompson of Bloglines,
+1-408-738-1395, or cathyt@bloglines.com
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