Jim Lanzone is Ask's New CEO: Opening Ask Minds to Possibilities
As reported this weekend, Steve Berkowitz left his post as Ask's CEO for new challenges at MSN, creating quite a vacuum at IAC.

The IAC appointed Jim Lanzone to the spot.

John Battelle interviewed Lanzone days before his CEO appointment, and caught up with him to ask questions about his new CEO-ship.

Changes: "The biggest change will be opening our minds to the possibilities of what we can do and who we can be, as IAC invests in our product development and marketing, as well as growing our employee base to accelerate our curve."

I wonder, as they open their minds to the possibilities of what they can do and who they can be, if there will be any social search in Ask's future?

Also interesting:
How Lanzone associates Ask with Firefox in BOTH Battelle interviews. Firefox won grassroots approval partly because of its flexibility due to its open-sourceness. Google's API (open-API) direction has done great things for its grassroots approval... I'd LOVE to see Ask move in this direction.

Like... could Ask give SEL (ok... ALL bloggers) an API for conceptually zooming in and out on searches within the site? That'd be one way to help with navigating...

Also see my recent interview with Jim Lanzone: Jim Lanzone on the Death of the Butler and the Future of Search (it's LONG, you can also read the excerpts)

I first spotted it at the pilgrim.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |