SEL: Exclusive Interview with Ask.com's Jim Lanzone

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Search marketing in the new media era.

March 03, 2006

Exclusive Interview with Ask.com's Jim Lanzone

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Lanzone, Ask.com's Senior Vice President & General Manager. Here are some excerpts:

on the future of search:
"The thing that I don't believe will change is that the majority of people will rely on only 2 or 3 search hubs, max, for all of their searches, wherever search lives. It's too complicated otherwise, so established search brands will continue to matter."

on improvements in search:
"...there's a lot of innovation that will still happen in basic relevance, both in Web search and in standard verticals.

"Take our launch of image search in January. Certainly not a sexy topic, but those improvements drove image searches up almost 50% on our site. That's an incredible number."

favorite change to Ask:
"My personal favorite was the web-based desktop search. Being able to access my files from the Toolbox clickwheel has increased my usage of it greatly."

on his role in the changes:
"My job on the team is to set objectives, define strategy, put the right people in the right roles and hold them accountable, facilitate when needed, prioritize and make decisions when needed, get my hands dirty when needed. I'm a momentum guy. I like to keep things moving."

on the death of jeeves:
"Hand-drawn cartoon characters do not die. They just get erased."

on the obvious comparison they're drawing between Darth Vader and Barry Diller:
Now you're really reading into things. Did Zawodny put you up to that one?

Here's the whole interview: Jim Lanzone on the Death of the Butler and the Future of Search.

Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

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