WebProNews

This time the butler didn't do it; instead, the smoking gun bears the rebranding fingerprints of IAC chairman Barry Diller.

Numerous sources cited today the long-anticipated renaming of Ask Jeeves to Ask.com. TheStreet.com reported how Mr. Diller commented about this at the Communacopia Conference in New York.

But the renaming hasn't taken place yet. Mr. Diller didn't give a timetable on when the butler would be retired. He did note how important the search engine will be to the future online efforts of his company.

"It is potentially the glue for almost all of our services," he said at the conference. But to do that, Ask needs more visitors. "Our job is to increase Ask's market share."

Mr. Diller also hopes to follow search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft into China, where the growing Internet user base numbers over 100 million.

Increasing market share in the US could take some time. Longtime search pundit Danny Sullivan mentioned the perception problems Ask faces, as he discusses the reactions of search training session attendees in his blog:

They associate the name Ask Jeeves and the mascot with what it once was, a bad search engine. They have no idea that in the past four years the product has become an increasingly valuable search and research tool.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.