Jeeves Freed

The butler didn’t do it for Ask Jeeves - Computerworld: “‘By the way, Jeeves will disappear, and we will be called Ask or Ask.com,’ Diller said during the conference. ‘Not that I don’t like that butler. He’s actually a thinner butler now.’

Jeeves, created by British humorist P.G. Wodehouse, was slimmed down and given a tan last year, said Lisa Meakin, a London-based spokeswoman for Ask Jeeves. But surveys showed users tended to pigeonhole the search engine as ‘old-fashioned’ and appropriate only for question-based queries, Meakin said.

The company’s research has shown that use of the Jeeves character as the prominent symbol of the brand blinds people to recent changes and improvements in the search engine, the company said in a statement.”

Hate to break this to you, Barry, but if it comes to a choice between a world without Jeeves and Wooster, or a world without Ask.com, you’re going overboard in a hurry.

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