Dictionary.com has launched a new application on BlackBerry App World. This application resembles the Dictionary.com application that has already been launched on the iTunes App Store. The iPhone/iPod Touch Dictionary.com application is also free and has hit about 3 million downloads.

The BlackBerry version of the app has a list of about 500,000 words, synonyms, definitions, audio pronunciations, and spelling suggestions. The Word of the Day feature in Spanish and English is built-in to the BlackBerry app too. One of the distinguishing features of the BlackBerry version is that synonyms and definitions can be accessed from the Dictionary.com app while reading or writing e-mails.

According to Dictionary.com President Doug Leeds, the company also plans to launch APIs for developers to integrate the application into their own services. The application will be integrated in several e-books too. The Dictionary.com application on BlackBerry App World is free and will be launching in the near future (if not already).

InterActiveCorp’s Ask.com bought out Dictionary.com as part of the Lexico acquisition in July 2008. Dictionary.com is the sister website of Thesaurus.com and Reference.com too.

Jim Safka stepped down as the CEO of Ask.com in the middle of last month and will now be moving to another online company, Chegg.com.  When Safka stepped down from InterActiveCorp’s search engine company, he said that he wanted to work on something smaller and more local-based.  Chegg is an online textbook rental service that was started in 2003.

The textbooks rent for a much cheaper price than what it costs to buy it on Chegg.  The company raised about $27 million in funding so far from Gabriel Venture Partners, Maples Investments, Kleiner Perkins, and Foundation Capital.  The first round was $2.2 million and the second round was about $25 million.

Osman Rashid, Chegg’s co-founder will step down from being CEO and will take the chairman position.

[via paidContent]

InterActiveCorp subsidiary Ask.com has signed a deal to become the official search engine for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).  Ask.com wants to push their brand in front of the second-most popular professional sport on TV.  NASCAR has about 75 million fans that purchase $3 billion in licensed products.

The financial details of the deal was not disclosed.  Jim Safka, CEO of Ask.com said that the goal of the deal is to have NASCAR fans use their search engine to look up information about NASCAR.  Ask.com will run the search engine on the NASCAR website and will also make a “NASCAR toolbar” for those users.  Ask will offer detail searches of NASCAR’s databases and the two companies will be showing display Ask.com ads at the races.

Ask.com sponsors the No. 96 Ford car driven by Bobby Labonte as part of a pact with the Hall of Fame racing.  The Ask.com Ford car will drive in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series as well.

“NASCAR fans are the most sponsor-loyal fan base in sports,” stated Ask.com spokesperson Andrea Riggs. “NASCAR fans appreciate the companies who support the sport they love and who enable the teams to keep racing.”

Steve Berkowitz announced in Feb. 2008 that he plans to leave Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).  Berkowitz was the SVP of Microsoft’s Online Services Group, responsible for marketing & sales for MSN.com and Windows Live.  Before Berkowitz worked at Microsoft, he was the former CEO of Ask.com.

According to CNET, Berkowitz has joined TheLadders.com, a job search engine with a focus on $100K salaries.

“Steve is an experienced and visionary leader whose proven record of success leading online services makes him an ideal person to join our board,” stated TheLadders.com CEO Marc Cenedella.

Before Berkowitz was the CEO of Ask.com, he was COO and President of IDG Books.  Berkowitz oversaw the expansion of the “Dummies” series books and IDG’s acquisition of CliffNotes, Frommer’s, Betty Crocker Cookbooks, and Lasser’s Tax Guides.  Berkowitz attended State University of New York in Albany.

Related Links:
1. Microsoft PressPass
2. CNET via Yahoo!

 
Ask.com, a subsidiary of IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ:IACI) and Photobucket, a subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE:NWS) have partnered together.  Ask.com is now powering Photobucket’s search engine.  Ask.com will also be controlling the ads on Photobucket.

The financial details were undisclosed.  Photobucket has roughly 44 million monthly unique visitors per month. 

Photobucket also launched an iPhone application.  The application will allow users to upload images to Photobucket from the phone.  The application costs about $4.99.

“Photobucket has one of the largest online audiences, and now Ask.com provides these consumers with the answers to the questions they ask every day,” stated Andrew Moers, GM of Ask.com partnerships. “This alliance furthers our strategy to bring Ask.com to consumers worldwide through a broad range of Internet access points.”

Related Links:
Ask.com
Photobucket

“Everyone at Ask is excited about our clear focus and the trajectory-changing results it will deliver.”
-Jim Safka, CEO of Ask

Ask.com, the fifth largest search engine has given up chasing after Google, the Goliath of search.  Ask is planning on changing its search engine to make it easier to find answers to questions revolving around homework, entertainment, health, etc.  This goes back to the days when Ask was known as Ask Jeeves.

The consequence of shifting to this new strategy is that they need less of a workforce to do it.  Ask is laying off 40 employees out of 500.  Will these laid off employees Twitter the process like former Yahoo! employees?  Maybe.

InterActiveCorp acquired Ask in March 2005.  Ask was valued at $1.85 billion at the time.  Ask has about 4.5% market share for online search.  Google has 58.5% according to the Associated Press.

Ask.com[1], formerly known as AskJeeves.com, changed around the look & feel of the search engine last night. The new look gives the website more of a three-dimensional look, hence the name Ask3D.

“It’s a pretty radical change,” stated John Battelle, CEO of Federated Media. “Most of the big players have a lot to lose, so they don’t want to shock the system. Ask has less to lose.”

Supporting Battelle’s statement, I believe that because Ask has less to lose, it can readily launch bizarre marketing campaigns such as the advertisement below:

[Source: Search Engine Roundtable[2]]

Below is a screen shot of the new look & feel of Ask.com:

I did a search on Detroit Pistons NBA basketball player, Rip Hamilton and noticed that Ask uses a three-panel system:

In the left panel is related news, search expansion suggestions, narrow search suggestions, and the search box itself. The middle panel has the actual search results. And the right panel has images, a biography clipping from Wikipedia, and blog search results. Each search result website can be saved to MyStuff, a bookmarking system through Ask.com.

“The way we will grow is by increasing the frequency of use of the 30 million monthly users we already have in the U.S.,” stated Jim Lanzone, CEO of Ask.com. By consolidating information on keywords from various sources, I think this new look for Ask.com will help the company remain competitive. Ask.com is the #4 search engine behind Yahoo!, MSN, and Google.

Jeeves, it’s been real. Jeeves is Ask.com’s former mascot, a butler that was axed shortly after IAC/InterActiveCorp acquired the company for $1.85 billion in March 2005.

[1] Ask.com
[2] Search Engine Roundtable: SEOs Critique Ask.com’s New “Algorithm Ads”

IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI) owns search engine Ask.com (formerly known as AskJeeves.com). The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) announced today that Ask.com has launched a search service for mobile phone, Blackberry, and PDA users. The mobile service is called Ask.com Mobile.

One of the cool things that Ask.com did to provide swift information-collecting for users is minimizing keystrokes. An example mentioned in the WSJ article is that if people are looking for a weather report in a certain area, users just need to type in the area code and click on one the weather link that comes up. I have not heard of any other mobile search providers where you can find a weather report for a certain area in 1-2 clicks.

Ask.com’s VP of product management, Doug Leeds stated “We know that consumers are increasingly looking for search offerings while they are on the go. Ask.com wanted to develop an offering that would help to minimize thumb strokes so that consumers find what they are looking for faster.” Other Ask.com features on the mobile service include an image search, directions, yellow pages, currency conversion, and horoscopes.

As I mentioned in a previous [post], many companies have an increasing desire to profit from mobile advertisements. Microsoft signed a deal a couple of days ago with an advertisement provider and already have mobile phone ads whereas Yahoo! and Google are working on doing the same. Right now, it is unclear as to whether Ask.com Mobile will be pursuing mobile advertisements as well.

Ask.com was founded in 1996 and is now a part of IAC Search & Media. The founding architect of Ask.com, who now works at Symantec Corporation is Gary Chevsky .