Ask & AOL

Netscape’s former days of glory are, well, over and AOL’s attempt to emulate Digg.com’s success with the same social-networking features proved a fiasco…

AOL LLC’s venerable Netscape.com site, given an extreme Web 2.0 makeover 15 months ago and transformed into a spiffy social news site, will revert to being a traditional portal again.

In June of 2006, AOL announced it would be adding social news features to its Netscape portal, aiming to tap into the popularity of sites like Digg, Slashdot, and Google News in which the rankings assigned to news stories by the site’s users can determine in part what news items are most prominently displayed.

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Another big Internet name is moving to a small town in Eastern Washington.

Moses Lake -- The butler may have left the building, but Ask.com has big plans for Moses Lake.

Ask.com, the leading search engine, formerly known as AskJeeves.com and Moses Lake Mayor Ron C. Covey announced that Ask.com will house a new data center in Moses Lake, located in Eastern Washington, Wednesday morning.

Mayor anticipates additional jobs through parent company IAC…

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Media companies are not the only ones looking to take advantage of the popularity of social networking sites. Online retailer Amazon.com is throwing its hat into the ring as well with a question and answer site called Askville.

Similar to Yahoo Answers, Answers.com and wis.dm, Askville allows users to post any question they want and get answers from real people.

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New York -- AOL on Tuesday launched a completely revamped version of AOL News, http://news.aol.com, that adopts an innovative blog format, combining traditional news sources, AOL programming and social news, all in an easy-to-use single-page experience.

The new version of AOL News has been designed to incorporate more elements of blogs and social news sites such as Digg.com.

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New York - AOL, the Time-Warner owned American Internet services and media company, has lately announced the acquisition of a controlling stake in a German online advertising firm Adtech AG, in an attempt to deliver vast volume of ads to big Web sites in Europe.

Adtech, based in Frankfurt, provides digital marketing solutions to web publishers in 25 countries, and has also developed the Helios IQ platform, that lets publishers manage traffic and report on their online ad campaigns.

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IAC has lately announced the launch of Ask Mobile location based application for its Ask.com web search service. The first ever service to combine local content, social networking and GPS navigation -- is now available for download at http://gps.ask.com/.

New York - IAC/InterActiveCorp recently announced the introduction of a new mobile application for its Ask.com web search service to help consumers find friends, shops and services based on their location at a given moment.

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AOL has acquired Third Screen Media to strengthen its position in mobile advertising, a small component of online advertising expected to shoot up in coming years and become a multibillion dollar market.

To compete in the online multibillion dollar ad market, AOL has joined the crowd, announcing the acquisition of Third Screen Media, a mobile-advertising network and mobile ad-serving and management-platform provider.

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The world's largest media conglomerate, Time Warner Inc.'s America Online Internet unit has recently launched its first country-specific web portal in India, including sections covering International Music, Sports and Bollywood buzz.

 

America Online, the Internet arm of media giant Time Warner, aggressively expanding its boundaries, has lately launched a web portal in India, including sections dedicated to sports and entertainment.

As part of AOL's global expansion plans, the new site will have tailored entertainment and news and feature much of the same features...

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The offering is AOL's latest push to move away from the pure Internet Service Provider business into the portal space to lure former subscribers back to the fold. AOL has recently launched free ad-based desktop software that combines its most popular services into one user interface, called OpenRide that creates a multi-pane view for Web users to be able to see e-mail, instant messaging, search and media such as video and audio on one screen. In an effort to compete with Yahoo, Google and MSN, AOL’s offering is its first since deciding to make more of its services available for free in the chase for online advertising dollars. (more…)

The search site launches service designed specifically for cell phones and handheld devices.
Ask.com has rolled out a new service for searching the Web from mobile phones and handheld devices known as Ask Mobile. Ask unveiled the new product at DigitalLife, a consumer event held in New York City.

Ask Mobile's interface and search tool are designed to minimize keystrokes, increase navigability on small displays and accelerate page loads to speed searches on the go.

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