Ask Jeeves Name Guessing Game

[andrewgoodman]

In the keynote conversation with Danny Sullivan, Ask Jeeves CEO Steve Berkowitz mentioned the company was thinking of changing its name, but made some noises that it would not be a big change.

Does anyone have any guesses as to what they're going to come up with?

Based on what he said, I can't imagine it being anything else but Jeeves.com. Let's put this one down at 3-1 odds.

But based on what Diller seems to have said when he bought the company, he thinks "Jeeves" is too snooty. He's the boss, and it still sounds like they might change, so Ask.com is the favorite, at 2-1. I still think they might convince him otherwise. I mean what kinda crazy thing is that, disliking a butler for being snooty...

The only other idea I can come up with is a single-letter name, just to be different.

This doesn't mean they won't still own a bunch of domain names and redirect them all to the main site... this is purely about the name of the company.


So to sum up, my guesses are:

Ask.com: 2-1
Jeeves.com: 3-1
No change, and it was a head fake: 7-1
AskJ.com: 150-1
J.com: 250-1

Add yours if you like! Please no wagering, this is an exhibition, not a competition.

[rustybrick]

Ask.com IMO.

[webreporter]

Hi,

They currently pay royalties to the estate of P.G Wodehouse for the use of the character Jeeves. By changing the name to Ask.com and phasing out the butler character, they will most probably save a lot of money. I would therefore predict a move (over several years) away from a third-party brand and towards a name related logo and appearance. The main issue in doing so is that the butler character is now a well recognised signia of AJ, removing it may result in losing part of their image and fan following.

Just my opinion


Rob

[Marketing Guy]

I hate that damn butler. Go go ask.com.

[TallTroll]

>> single-letter name

Single letter domains aren't legal, are they? As far as I'm aware, every TLD body requires a minimum of 2 chars in teh second level domain spot

[webreporter]

Originally Posted by TallTroll

Single letter domains aren't legal, are they? As far as I'm aware, every TLD body requires a minimum of 2 chars in teh second level domain spot

Current ICANN regulations prevent such domains, many ccTLD registries also prefer not to allow 2 character domains. Nominet for example do not allow 2 character registrations under the *.uk suffix, although some companies gained their's before Nominet came into power.

I'm sure that I've already seen AJ advertising as just Ask.com, with a Ask.com logo. They've also introduced "Ask.com" in small letters to their current Ask Jeeves logo.

I find it surprising how much market share they still have in the UK, especially with infrequent computer users. It's hard to find an organic result on their UK portal, with sometimes irrelevant adverts for companies such as Dell.



Rob