• BBC News, Monday, April 20, 2009 11:15 AM

Ask.com is bringing back Jeeves, the fictional butler who was dropped from the Ask brand in 2006 as the search engine focused on gaining market share away from search leader Google. The company tells BBC that Jeeves' return comes in response to "user demand," denying that the move is part of a last-ditch effort to gain ground in search.

"We have seen a growth of 20% this year, so we are not struggling," said Managing Director Cesar Mascaraque. "Our aim is to give our users the answers they need for the lives they lead and Jeeves's role is to give our users answers in a more human way."

However, Peter Matthews, manager of the brand and digital consultancy Nucleus, disagrees with these claims. "Ask is struggling, as all search engines other than Google are," he said. "With Google, you get 90% of the market, so the other search engines -- Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask to name but a few -- are all trying to grab a share of the remaining 10%." He implied that bringing back Jeeves could prove to be a smart move. "Ask Jeeves was quite a strong brand, in the sense it had brand values that were different from everyone else. Ask without Jeeves lacked character and while the actual product -- searching the web -- is very effective, in trying to be more like Google they shot themselves in the foot."

Read the whole story at BBC News »