ASK.COM

Written by In Ah Hwang 20600770

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In the article, it is said that Ask.com, a worldwide search engine is changing its targets to specifically toward women, housewives, and mothers. Ask.com was a worldwide search engine used by diverse age for all sorts of research. However, it started to show irrelevant search results in some cases. And as Google and Yahoo's internet business prospered through great marketing, Ask.com fell behind. Ask.com has been challenging Google and Yahoo in the internet, search engine field since 1996. But challenging Google, keeping a 58.5% market share was impossible to beat compared to Ask.com's 4.5% market share.

In order to save their site, they decided to change their targets from worldwide search engine into "married women's" search website. In order to market this right, Ask.com has to drop its mascot, "JEEVES" to let go of the cartoon and show seriousness. Ask.com will hire Google to run their search engine, while they focus their search specfically for women, which includes cook recipes, children's homework and studies, hobbies, entertainment, and etc.

As we can see, Google is the top internet-based firms, which is doing an excellent job on "providing a great value" to its customers. Wondering why Ask.com lost many customers, we can see that the problem they faced was: unsatisfied customers. As the article says, many irrelevant results showed up for searches which unsatisfies the customers needs and wants. While Google prioritized and customized searches. The service people experienced in Ask.com wasn't as satisfying compared to Google's search.

Through changing its targets, Ask.com can concentrate more on its targets' wants and needs. By concentrating more, it can create value. This way they can create customer relationship management towards married women and dig into another segmentation that aren't major targets yet.

I think Ask.com made a good choice to target women. First of all, Google has grown too big to be competed with, having over half of the market share. Also, Ask.com can find ways to concentrate more on women for the "needed" information. I believe "married women" can be considered a great number of customers. Many women face limited time in their hectic agendas, and Ask.com can be a tool to go through their day. All answers can be found in Ask.com, just for women.