Ask Jeeves searches for market share

Hoping to emerge from the shadow of its more popular rivals, Ask Jeeves Inc. is adding new tools for visitors to save and organize links to Web pages they find through the company’s online search engine.

The free features, unveiled last week, represent Ask Jeeves’ latest attempt to get a leg up on industry leaders Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

Even as the Emeryville-based company improves its search technology and becomes increasingly profitable, Ask Jeeves has struggled to shake its early reputation as a financially feeble dot-com distributing an inferior product.

Ask Jeeves believes it has been steadily gaining on its better-known rivals and hopes to take another significant leap with its “MyJeeves” offerings.

“Google is not better than us,” said Jim Lanzone, an Ask Jeeves senior vice president. “We are both operating at a world-class level. We just have a different flavor.”

Like its rivals, the company is trying to develop new ways to persuade visitors to return more frequently and stay longer once they’re there.

Ask Jeeves has a long way to go to catch up, though. Through July, Google handled about 36 percent of Internet searches, with Yahoo at 29 percent, according to comScore Media Metrix, a research firm. Ask Jeeves’ various search engines, which include Teoma, Excite and iWon, held a 6 percent share.

The latest features aren’t technological breakthroughs. A9.com, an upstart from Internet retail giant Amazon.com Inc., just last week introduced a similar feature for visitors to save Web links inscribed with personal notes. A $29.95 software program called Onfolio also helps collate and classify Web sites.

Ask Jeeves is touting its service as more user-friendly because it doesn’t require the installation of any toolbars or software programs.

Amazon revamps Web search site

Amazon.com introduced a new version of its 6-month-old Web search site, A9.com. The company said it retrieves material, remembers search requests, and helps users manage information.

The service, at A9.com, generates five types of results: Web sites from Google, images from Google, book text from Amazon’s Inside The Book, movie information from the Internet Movie Database, which Amazon also owns, and reference material from GuruNet.com.

The results are presented in columns on a Web page, and can be modified and rearranged by the user. Each time a user comes to the site, A9.com recognizes them and remembers what they searched for in the past. People can take notes on pages they’ve seen and bookmark pages they want to revisit.

“The ability to search through your own history is insanely powerful,” said John Battelle, a consultant who is organizing the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco next month. “This is a big deal. But the question is will people get the habit of using it,” he told The New York Times.

Broadband a coastal thing

At least six out of 10 Internet users at home in 10 major markets have a high-speed connection. Nielsen/NetRatings reported the top five local markets for broadband are San Diego, Phoenix, Detroit, New York and Sacramento.

“Our data indicates that U.S. coastal cities, which tend to me more affluent communities with large professional workforces, are more connected via broadband, while those more inland are still connected by narrowband,” said Corey Jeffrey, Internet analyst.

Local markets with the least broadband connectivity were Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, Charlotte and Columbus, where dialup was the connection option for at least 60 percent of residential surfers.

Online ad spending outpacing industry growth

Web advertising, search and e-mail promotion are the fastest growing forms of marketing, attendees at an industry marketing conference were told Wednesday. Ian Beavis, senior vice president of marketing at Mitsubishi, told the conference in Deer Valley, Utah, “Marketers must find a strategy and rigorously use (the Internet),” according to a news release issued during the meeting.

A study of ad spending, sponsored by Advertising.com and conducted by Millward Brown, indicated the Internet is gaining strength at the expense of other media. While 60 percent of marketers expect their total marketing budgets to increase next year, channels of online marketing will increase at a higher rate than other major media. Respondents see online as the most effective medium for acquiring and retaining customers, the study said.

Apprentice 2’s first lesson

Sammy Glick may be alive and well at Mattel Inc. The company is taking orders now for the toy conceived for it by “Apprentice” cast members on last week’s broadcast. You can order “Morph Machines” for $27.99 on the ToysRUs.com Web site. Expected delivery date, mid-February next year.

The women’s team came up with the idea for the remote-controlled car that can break apart and be easily reassembled, targeted to appeal to 5-to-8-year-old boys. “The concept was good,” said Sara Rosales, a spokeswoman for Mattel, in comments to the Los Angeles Times. The team which thought up the toy will not see a penny from the product’s profits. Consider that a lesson.