I actually think the strategy makes perfect sense.  It was nonsense for Ask to compete for global domination of a search market that 1) may not exist in a few years, and b) it couldn't win anyway.  Vertical, phrase-based, or other targeted search makes sense, especially if they can do it brilliantly and then go about 'owning' it with branding, and my suspicion is that Safka and his team are busy reinventing this business in some very creative, targeted ways.  I riffed on some of the possibilities back in late January, and if you'd like to check it out, here's the original post: http://dimbulb.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/01/ask-has-the-ans.html