We thought he’d been retired and sent off to an old people’s home to be looked after by kindly searchbots, but Ask has brought back Jeeves in an attempt to claw back some market share from the all dominating Google.
Named after PG Wodehouse’s fact-stuffed, smartarse butler, Jeeves formed the face of Ask’s search engine until 2006 when he was unceremoniously booted off after an interface overhaul.
Kicking off Jeeves did nothing to turn around the company’s fortunes, with the search engine still languishing in fourth place behind Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
Although Ask claims it has an average of 15 million UK monthly users, that’s but a mere speck o’search dust compared to Google’s vast market share, with the company enjoying a phenomenal 87.3% of the UK market.
We can’t say we’ve seen any ‘Bring Back Jeeves’ placard-waving protesters being battered about by psychotic cops recently, but Ask insist that the character is being brought back by “popular demand.”
Now that The People have spoken, Ask will be reverting to the Ask Jeeves name, and to show everyone how hip and groovy they are, the character has been given a slightly creepy 3D facelift.
Backing up the service revamp will be a cash-devouring media campaign promoting the all-new Jeeves, as well as a ton of online attention grabbers.
We’ve lost count of the amount of times Ask has tried to whip up interest in their search services over the years, but we still can’t remember the last time we actually clicked on their home page. Anyone out there still using it?
Whooooo Jeevs is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)
I haven’t even been on the site for 2 years. Who actually cared that Jeeves had gone?
The new image of Jeeves is ghastly. He continues to be suave and dignified in the minds of older readers.