News Source: http://searchengineland.com
Published: Jan 10, 2008 - 04:09 am
Story Found By: rustybrick 1958 Days ago
Category: Searching
Jim Lanzone goes into venture stuff. But more shocking... He leaves Ask.com.
Jim, to me, is the soul of Ask.com. It is very very sad to see him leave Ask.
Thoughts on why, who, what?
8 Comments
Comments
Best of luck to Jim, but I must say, I’m really sorry to see him go. He brought an amazing amount of energy and excitement to my favorite little search engine. It was always fun to see his face light up when you got him talking about what Ask was up to or their latest round of TV commercials. I’d be very interested to hear what people like Gary Price have to say about the exit. He’s always described Jim as really "getting it". Jim Safka has some giant shoes to fill. We’ll all be watching.
Wow ... huge news!
bummer Jim is a great guy and it will suck to not have him directly involved in the growth of ask.com. At least Gary is still there keeping it real. :)
Oh dear. I hoped that Diller was focusing on ASK since I thing that is the sole horse that should drive the IAC growth. The quote from the article isn’t at all encouraging:In his statement, Diller said: These changes are intended to strengthen and streamline the operating structure at IAC, both leading up to our intended spin-offs, and beyond.Giving the glowing description of Jim Lanzone given by Diller, this presumably means there was a fundamental difference on strategic thinking here. That really upsets me. I was seeing ASK as the David to Google’s Goliath.
Safka rocks. Brilliant marketer. May understand paid search better than any marketer on Google Earth. Lanzone deserves Diller’s kudos. He launched the blended search innovations that have transformed the industry. That said, Redpoint invested in Ask. Their current portfolio includes Efficient Frontier. Jim’s in a great place to evaluate and back new ventures. It didn’t take Jason long to launch Mahalo (less time than it took him to see the value of SEO). I’d rather follow Jim at Redpoint than watch Google, Yahoo, Live widen the gap with Ask. Technology won’t increase the asking price for Ask; marketing and monetization will. @ Othelisa, can’t imagine Gary would say anything but great things about either Jim.@ bwelford, not necessarily divergence in strategic thinking; may have more to do with matching exec strengths with corporate imperatives
@ Barry, don’t get all sentimental and tracy kidder-ish on us ;-) You mean, soul as in Soul of a New Machine? Or, that Ask has lost its soul?in either case, sphinn newbies deserve a full schwag disclosure ;-) schwagaddict.com<font size="-1"></font>full disclosure: i am not an affiliate of schwagaddict, just a recovering trade show junkie(until London and New York)
@KevinI believe that Jim was the soul of Ask. Is that lost? I feel a large part of it is. Can it be replaced? That is meant to be seen.
well..may be he was a soul but search is not spiritual matter, It is all about money guys and jim was a lousy money maker for diller....could not manage at all, and did not undertand that it is numbers stupid...his constant tinkering with features instead of index and good results (where is the algorithm???) brough NO new users....so, he won’t be missed...and the new guy has now to fix lanzone mess...