Ask Jeeves is Dropping the Butler

Posted on September 27, 2005

The BBC reports that Ask Jeeves will be showing the butler to the door in the near future. Apparently, the company believes the butler is confusing people who come to use the popular web search provider. Jeeves was inspired by the knowledgeable butler character from P G Wodehouse' novels.

Citing "user confusion" over what the butler character represents the search site has said that Jeeves will soon be phased out.

There is no firm date for when the character will disappear from the Ask site, but it will soon stop being the brand's most prominent icon.

No decision has been made about a new name for the Ask search site.

Without Jeeves will the company just become Ask or Ask.com? Symetri says the butler dumping is part of rebranding strategy to help the company better compete with AOL, Yahoo and Google.


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