What ever happened to Ask Jeeves, Netscape or AOL?
Many internet companies have come and gone in the few short years since the internet has been in existence. Here are just a few.
Ask Jeeves:What it was: Powerful search engine for 10 years at the AskJeeves.com web site. What happened?: The Ask Jeeves in existence for over 10 years now, but many Internet newbies found the AskJeeves.com website name easy to mistyped. At one point, Jeeves was proclaimed to be the most often misspelled search engine on the Internet (Wordtracker reports that the misspelling “Geeves” still gets thousands of queries each day). In 2001 the company shortened its name and did away with its butler mascot to simply become “Ask.com.” When you just ask Jeeves a question these days you actually aren’t asking “Jeeves” anything. What you ARE doing is using a powerful search engine that built its name and reputation on delivering answers to questions asked in natural, everyday language. The other main difference–and one Ask hopes will make it stand out from the crowd–is its stance on ads. The message is clear: Fewer ads displayed above search results reinforces the company’s stance as a good search engine. AOL:What it was/is: AOL has a long history on the internet, being one of the first companies to really get people online. Throughout its lifetime, it has been involved with a number of high profile acquisitions, perhaps the largest of which was the 1999 acquisition of the Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was known to many as the leading technology in web browsing, and had developed a number of complementary pieces of software that allowed for a rich suite of internet tools. During its peak years, AOL had 34 million members and was worth $200 billion. Netscape:What it was: Netscape was the original internet browser (like your Internet Explorer or Firefox of today). Netscape advertised that “the web is for everyone” and stated one of its goals as to “level the playing field” among operating systems by providing a consistent web viewing experience across them. The Netscape (web~internet} browser interface was identical on any computer. What happened: Netscape’s web browser was once dominant in terms of usage share but lost most of that share to Internet Explorer. By the end of 2006, the usage share of Netscape browsers had fallen, from over 90% in the mid 1990s, to less than 1%. The Netscape brand is still extensively used by AOL. Some services currently offered under the Netscape brand, other than the web browser, include a discount Internet service provider and a popular social news website. In December 2007, AOL announced it would no longer be updating the Netscape browser. |
