In his new role, Lanzone will manage all of CBS Interactive’s operations globally. He replaces Neil Ashe, who was President of CBS Interactive since 2008 and announced in December he would leave the company when a successor was named.

Before Clicker, Lanzone was the CEO of Ask.com where he held a number of executive roles ranging from SVP of Product Management, to General Manager of Ask Jeeves U.S., and finally CEO. After leaving Ask, Lanzone joined Redpoint Ventures as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and raised $8 million to develop Clicker in October 2008.

“As we look to the future, CBS has the kind of platform that can take Clicker to the next level as we look to create a lasting, meaningful brand and destination.  We couldn’t be happier to become part of their family now,” Lanzone said on the Clicker blog.

“What should our users do in light of this news?  Act natural!  Seriously.  Keep sending us your comments and ideas, and we’ll keep building Clicker into the product you need it to be.”

Following the news of Jim Lanzone’s abrupt exit as CEO of Ask.com, the usual commentary and conjecture have made their way around the Internet. Valleywag said Lanzone got his walking papers from IAC topper Barry Diller due to an in-the-works Ask News site slipping its December ship date.

Considering Google’s huge search market share, running competition against them can’t be a lot of fun. Yahoo’s Terry Semel finally got forced out while that portal’s search marketing product received a frantic reconstruction, the better to compete with Google on contextual ad relevancy.

Lanzone’s job could have been made much easier, according to Watch Mojo. Ashkan Karbasfrooshan performed a simple test, to see if and when a recent blog post he wrote got picked up by the four big search engines.

Google had it on page one of the search results in less than 24 hours, based on the keywords he used to retrieve it. The article came in after one at a New York Times blog, but the Times is tough to beat with its massive PageRank score.

Yahoo picked it up, albeit indirectly, while MSN Search missed it. Ask also had not picked it up, though it did have a previous article he wrote about the same subject.

“This is a very small test to show why Google is winning in search. My post went up 24 hours ago and it was technically the only search engine to pick it up,” said Karbasfrooshan.

He isn’t convinced Diller spent that $100 million in advertising the Ask algorithm in an effective manner, either.

“At the risk of being a smart ass, I will say this: IAC spent $100M on an advertising campaign that was ineffective, touting some algorithm,” he wrote.

“Maybe, I

A few weeks ahead of IAC’s 4Q 2007 earnings call on February 8th, the company has made some changes at the search engine and around parent company IAC.

IAC announced today Lanzone will remain as an advisor during the changeover as Safka settles into the position. Lanzone plans to join Redpoint Ventures, as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence.

“Jim Lanzone was the principal executive responsible for Ask.com’s turnaround over the last two years. His passion for innovation and his every day dedication to the business and its people have been everything anyone could ask for,” Diller said in a statement. “He is a superb executive and leader and I’m hopeful we can be associated in the future.”

We at WebProNews have always appreciated Lanzone’s candor and knowledge, and hope Safka will emulate his predecessor. The well-traveled Safka has stops at AT&T Wireless, E-Trade, and several other firms along with his prior stint running the dating site in his background.

Another executive, Scott Garell, has been named President of Ask.com. He will manage the search engine’s global operations. Garell formerly held the position of CEO of IAC Consumer Applications & Portals, including Fun Web Products, Evite, and Pronto.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/iac-jimmies-the-ask-ceo-office-2008-01/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/ses-ask-ing-jim-lanzone-about-search-2007-08 http://www.webpronews.com/ses-ask-ing-jim-lanzone-about-search-2007-08#comments Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:56:35 +0000 WebProNews Staff http://www.webpronews.com/?p=39914 SES San Jose co-chair Chris Sherman took Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone on a little question and answer journey for the morning conference keynote.


(Our on-scene WebProNews staff has passed along this latest news from SES San Jose 2007. If you can’t be there, you need to be here with WebProNews this week, for videos and reports.)

Lanzone ranged across several topics this morning in his keynote discussion with Sherman. The Ask CEO tried to keep a promise of not saying 3D all the time, a reference to the recent update of Ask to its current Ask3D configuration.

“We hit on this three-panel interface that maps to the three stages of search,” he said of the new Ask. Options for narrowing or expanding the search appear on the left, content in the center, and options for the discovery of deeper content on the right.

It’s an approach that gets visitors the right answer in the right place, at the right time, said Lanzone. They want to focus more on providing better results than worrying about beating Google in search.

In discussing the search behemoth, Lanzone noted how Ask has been a Google partner. “It’s got to be almost a love-hate relationship with them,” he said of the prospect of anyone partnering with Google.

More of Lanzone’s 40 minute chat may be heard at WebmasterRadio.fm.

The search engines have been relatively quiet the past couple of weeks. Previous SES San Jose shows usually give the search and marketing industry some new products and services to try, and opinions to discuss.

We expect the same this year, having already heard from one major search provider that is eager to clarify the implications of another industry firm’s announcement scheduled during SES San Jose.

Keynotes for this year’s edition of SES San Jose should be entertaining. Mayer’s talk should expand on Google’s idea of universal search.

Lanzone’s talk may be similar, as he plans to discuss Ask3D, Ask’s approach to universal search, as part of a Q&A session with conference organizer Chris Sherman.

“I may breakdance, if asked,” Lanzone quipped in an email to WebProNews about his keynote.

We’ll have a camera on him if he chooses to break out and do ‘Electric Boogaloo 3: AIIGH! Call An Ambulance’ at the show. Spin on your head, Jim.

Searching for Google on the UK version of Ask brings up a link to Information-Revolution. Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan pinned down Ask’s CEO Jim Lanzone about the campaign:

He said it’s all meant in good fun, not to be negative about Google, but rather to wake “sleep searchers” up to the choices they have in search. And I have to agree — when you understand more about what’s planned, it is pretty funny.

In particular, Ask wants to build up the idea that the “sleep search” choice shouldn’t be how people select their search engines.

“Google dominates the media. We need another way around the mountain. It’s been frustrating to continually launch critically-praised products, only to have 62 percent of UK users give little or no thought to which search engine they use. We call that ‘sleep searching,’ and we want to wake them up,” he explained.

Additional advertising will appear in London on TV, radio, and even in lights on Westminster Abbey, according to Lanzone.

Early impressions of the campaign have drawn a mix of comments. Clickinfluence’s Nick Wilson posted a negative review of what he has seen, and also noted Profero works for Yahoo as well as Ask:

It seems that Search underdog ASK, is engaged in a little dirty tricks campaign against Google. Not only that though, the campaign, dressed up as a grassroots movement against information monopoly, is far less than transparent.

Wilson further called the ad campaign “a pretty stupid way” to undermine a competitor.

As dirty tricks go, it’s hard to drop Lanzone and company into the same category as the Enron crew. Wilson and the negative commentors at Information-Revolution may be taking the message too seriously.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/ask-goes-to-the-tubes-2007-03/feed 0