It's Goodbye Time for Jeeves and Ask.com - Relics of Yesterday's Internet (engadget.com) 30
A 1999 press release bragged "Jeeves" answered 92.3 million questions in just three months. "In the digital wilds of Y2K, we came to him with our most probing questions," remembers the New York Times — whether it was Britney Spears or tamagotchis:
We asked, and he answered: Jeeves, the digital butler of information, the online valet who led us into the depths of cyberspace. Now, like so many other relics of yesterday's internet, Jeeves — and his home, Ask.com — are no more. After almost 30 years, the question-and-answer service and former search engine shuttered on Friday. "To you — the millions of users who turned to us for answers in a rapidly changing world — thank you for your endless curiosity, your loyalty, and your trust," the company said in a notice posted on its now-defunct website...
Created in Berkeley, Calif., in the days of the dot-com gold rush, Ask Jeeves first appeared on computer screens in 1996.... Their mascot, Jeeves, was modeled on the clever English butler character from the famed P.G. Wodehouse book series. Its search function was simple — type in a question, get an answer. But the quality of its responses was uneven, and the website was quickly eclipsed by Google and Yahoo as the world's go-to search engines.
The site was bought by InterActive Corp. for more than $1 billion in 2005, and was given an injection of cash to help it compete as a search engine. It rebranded as Ask.com and as part of the reimagining, the site also ditched the character of Jeeves in 2006. Scrappy but inventive, the site was one of the first to introduce hyperlocal map overlays to its searches and incorporate thumbnails of webpages. "They are doing a lot of clever and interesting things," a Google executive noted of Ask.com at the time. Still, Ask.com struggled to compete and returned in 2010 to its bread and butter: question-and-answer style prompts.
Even then, it faltered against newer, crowdsourced iterations like Quora and Google's unyielding march to the internet fore — the platform now dominates search traffic, and the world's general experience of the internet.
A statement at Ask.com ends "by thanking its millions of users, and saying, 'Jeeves' spirit endures'," notes this article from Engadget: As sad as it is to see a relic of the early Internet days fade into obscurity, we still have Ask Jeeves to thank for why some users still punch in full questions when querying Google. On top of that, Jeeves was built to provide detailed answers in natural language, which could have arguably acted as a precursor to today's AI chatbots like ChatGPT.
"Now, Ask.com joins the Internet graveyard that includes competitors like AltaVista, which shut down in 2013," the article points out. "With Ask.com gone, alongside AIM and AOL dial-up services also sunsetting, we're truly coming to an end of a specific era of the Internet." And the New York Times argues the memory of Jeeves now rests somewhere between Limewire and Beanie Babies...
Slashdot reader BrianFagioli calls it "a quiet reminder of how quickly the web moves, and how even widely recognized names can drift into obscurity once the underlying technology leaves them behind."
Created in Berkeley, Calif., in the days of the dot-com gold rush, Ask Jeeves first appeared on computer screens in 1996.... Their mascot, Jeeves, was modeled on the clever English butler character from the famed P.G. Wodehouse book series. Its search function was simple — type in a question, get an answer. But the quality of its responses was uneven, and the website was quickly eclipsed by Google and Yahoo as the world's go-to search engines.
The site was bought by InterActive Corp. for more than $1 billion in 2005, and was given an injection of cash to help it compete as a search engine. It rebranded as Ask.com and as part of the reimagining, the site also ditched the character of Jeeves in 2006. Scrappy but inventive, the site was one of the first to introduce hyperlocal map overlays to its searches and incorporate thumbnails of webpages. "They are doing a lot of clever and interesting things," a Google executive noted of Ask.com at the time. Still, Ask.com struggled to compete and returned in 2010 to its bread and butter: question-and-answer style prompts.
Even then, it faltered against newer, crowdsourced iterations like Quora and Google's unyielding march to the internet fore — the platform now dominates search traffic, and the world's general experience of the internet.
A statement at Ask.com ends "by thanking its millions of users, and saying, 'Jeeves' spirit endures'," notes this article from Engadget: As sad as it is to see a relic of the early Internet days fade into obscurity, we still have Ask Jeeves to thank for why some users still punch in full questions when querying Google. On top of that, Jeeves was built to provide detailed answers in natural language, which could have arguably acted as a precursor to today's AI chatbots like ChatGPT.
"Now, Ask.com joins the Internet graveyard that includes competitors like AltaVista, which shut down in 2013," the article points out. "With Ask.com gone, alongside AIM and AOL dial-up services also sunsetting, we're truly coming to an end of a specific era of the Internet." And the New York Times argues the memory of Jeeves now rests somewhere between Limewire and Beanie Babies...
Slashdot reader BrianFagioli calls it "a quiet reminder of how quickly the web moves, and how even widely recognized names can drift into obscurity once the underlying technology leaves them behind."
Jeeves (Score:2)
That's Stephen Fry , isn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
Please don't ask Stephen Fry a question - once he gets going, he never shuts up!
A shame. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ask Jeeves had real potential in the AI era -- a character you could actually recognise, which could be moulded to fit the character from the books (the training material is more than adequate for a persona). Current AI chatbots used for searches have either no real personality or a very simplistic sycophant one. A detailed persona that could keep people engaged and interested without talking them into paranoia or suicide would likely have gone down well.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:A shame. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: A shame. (Score:2)
There are still places without any cell service in the US. Unlike for landlines, the government does not mandate that cell service must be available at your address.
Sunsetting?!?!? (Score:2)
AIM and AOL dial-up services also sunsetting
Sunsetting?!?!?!? How can dial-up still be a thing? Even the slowest tethered smartphone speed is going to be at least 10x and likely more than 100x faster than dial-up.
Tell me you've never... (Score:1)
...ventured out of your city without telling me...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've been several times. Never noticed any decline in cellular data speed. What happened to you? Did an NVMO hurt you?
Re: (Score:2)
I work in Seattle. I can't say I've ever noticed an issue when I've had to use my cell phone's network, but it's not like I do that every day.
However I can say that, in between stations along the train tracks (where the Sounder runs), there are places where there basically isn't any connectivity no matter which network you're on.
Re:Tell me you've never... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the "Damned city folk don't understand" people come out whenever dial-up is mentioned, but here's the problem: DIAL UP IS FUCKING USELESS IN 2026.
Do you SERIOUSLY think you can browse the net at 56kbps? Google's home page currently weighs in at nearly 300Kb. Do you remember what it was to download 300k back in 1995? And Google's home page is one of the few on the net right now that's trying to be "lightweight". How big do you think Amazon's home page is right now?
What websites are still useful in 2026 that can be downloaded using a 56kbps modem?
Re:Tell me you've never... (Score:5, Informative)
And this is, quite frankly, insane.
The web hasn't gotten better in the last 20 years. It has gotten enshittified. Wikipedia was just as good, navigation wise, 20 years ago as it is today. Google was obviously much better 20 years ago than it is today.
What we use all those KBs for is a mystery, except if it is to support the enshittification, user tracking, etc. It certainly isn't to make the sites better.
Re: (Score:2)
They make more money for the people who run them. That's "better". And since it's the people who run them who decide what goes in them, that's what we go with.
Re: (Score:2)
Google's home page currently weighs in at nearly 300Kb.
Even if you turn off JavaScript?
Re: (Score:2)
How does dialup even work when your average webpage has megabytes of scripts?
Re: (Score:2)
How does dialup even work when your average webpage has megabytes of scripts?
The modern web would suck, but it would probably be fine for email if you limited it to text-only. Hell, even emails with images and attachments are usually limited to a couple of meg. Slow, but doable.
I didn't know (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What? The Internet?
They quit trying a long time ago (Score:4, Interesting)
When Ask Jeeves came out, it was new and revolutionary. But they just sat there, failing to continue the long road of improvements that were inevitably needed.
At the same time, Google beat them at their own game. Google made it possible to search using the very same Q&A syntax that Ask Jeeves pioneered, but Google did it better.
Finally, Ask Jeeves became a junk site, little more than a place for banner ads.
So long AJ, it was nice knowing you.
Google is the new Jeeves (Score:2)
Its search function was simple — type in a question, get an answer. But the quality of its responses was uneven, and the website was quickly eclipsed by Google and Yahoo as the world's go-to search engines.
That's sort of what Google does now. You try to search, it gives you some AI-generated overview of the topic before providing links. It's occasionally handy but most often infuriating.
Missed opportunity for LLM name (Score:1)
i'm really surprised the AI bros didn't pounce on the marketing opportunity.
"Relics of Yesterday's Internet" (Score:3)
I resemble that remark!
Wut!... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Phew! Thank god there are alternatives (Score:1)
Man I'm really glad my favorite BBS has a web search gateway. I just upgraded to a 19.2k modem so I'm ready to keep blazing the trail on the world wide web! Now what was the name of that IRC server...
Dies right when we achieve its original promise (Score:2)
We're now in an era where you can ask a question in plain language and get a good response. Back when it debuted, computers really struggled with that.