NEWS Internet search engine Ask.com has confirmed its long-term figurehead, the butler Jeeves, is facing an uncertain future and may well find himself thrown onto the manservant scrapheap in the coming months.
Although the company says no final decision has been taken, the signs aren't good for Jeeves. A decision to distance Ask.com from its pin-striped batman follows a year-long review which started in September 2004, when Jeeves was suspended from his duties before returning a little smarter for a makeover.
Having apparently been given 12 months to buck up his act, it appears he is now facing redundancy.
Although cynics may suggest this story is becoming something of a cheap annual publicity stunt, a statement from the search firm appears to acknowledge the fact the Jeeves character has been irreparably tarnished by his failure to return the right search results during his early years on the job. And Ask.com now seems keen to distance itself from those early failures.
"Over the last year, we have been actively engaged in testing the role of the Jeeves character and how it affects users' recognition of how the search engine has evolved and dramatically improved," the company said in a statement.
"This research shows use of the character as the prominent symbol of the brand may inhibit people from recognising that our search engine has changed, and now gives a better and unique search experience."
However, there remains some uncertainty as to whether Ask.com will ditch Jeeves altogether from all of its branding.
"The character may be phased out as the prominent icon of the brand, although no timeline or details have been determined," the statement added.
Although the messages out of Ask.com appear non-committal, Jeeves is clearly concerned.
Asked via the query field on the website to confirm whether he has actually lost his job, the butler simply directed silicon.com towards a website entitled 'Coping with job loss'.
The signs don't look good for Jeeves, although his results appear a little more relevant - but it may be too little, too late.
Comments
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1. Jon Pennycook
When Ask Jeeves first started, it would give reasonable results based on phrases that you entered. Since then it became an advertisers playground, just returning results based on keywords rather than phrases. I stopped using Ask Jeeves a long time ago.
2. anonymous
Ask Jeeves was originally a very good search engine, then it put paid adverts in far more prominence and ruined it's normal search, since then I haven't bothered to go back.
3. Iain Benger-Stevenson
Please, please, please, not that awful Chav character again. Some of us ancients like Jeeves.
4. Finbar Dineen
I'm sure they are improving their search engine algorithm all the time, but I still can't see the difference. I use Firefox with the search engine plugins and regulalry cycle through all the major search engines for a range of keywords and topics.
Of all the major search engines, Ask Jeeves performs the worst. It misses major changes in the web landscape, is not updated enough and is more concerned with paid adds that results.
I get 8 full adds for any 10 search results. The adds are placed above the result I want in the same typography and style. This is just an unpleasant and irrelevant search experience.