Ask Jeeves to Retire "Butler" Icon

The week has been a sad time for the Internet. As I am sure most of you already know, Ask Jeeves will be saying goodbye to their corporate icon of 10 years. That's right... Jeeves, the butler mascot for Ask Jeeves, is retiring from his duties as ask's "answer man", and the search engine is slimming down to its long used but little promoted "Ask.com" domain name.

The Internet's favorite butler has been serving up answers since its creation in November of 1995. From the start, Jeeves was different than the other search services of the day. The idea behind Jeeves was not to create yet another search engine or directory, but to offer a question/answering service... basically a virtual online concierge. At that time, AltaVista (now owned by Yahoo!) had just publicly launched, and Yahoo!, although popular, was still a small operation and hosted on servers provided by Netscape, the web's major powerhouse of the time. My how times have changed!

Looking back, one of my favorite memories of Jeeves would have to be his participation in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Ask created a giant sized version of their butler character and floated it proudly amongst the New York City Skyline. Jeeves is the first Internet character (and I believe he's the only) to have participated in this traditional event.

So why now? Why is Jeeves hanging up his 10+ year old suit at a time when his popularity still continues to grow? Well, my guess is that it has a lot to do with the IAC / Ask Jeeves acquisition that took place last year. The butler and his future with the company must have been left out of the negotiations. To me, this just all seems like really bad timing. With Jeeves' expanded search technology and its recently added paid placement program (PPC) the company is literally in a position to launch a full-out assult on search giants Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

Oh well, at least Jeeves' didn't just leave with out saying "Goodbye". The people over at Ask created a retirement website where visitors can read Jeeves' official resignation letter, cast a vote for what he should do during his retirement, and even sign his retirement card. In addition, Ask put together this very funny going away video.

It's funny, when you consider that Jeeves just a static drawing of a butler-ish figure on a website, how much the Jeeves character has come to mean for people over the years. There are people who take Jeeves very literally. They think of Jeeves as the guy behind their searches, a cartoon man giving them answers. Jeeves is what makes the site unique for these people, pure and simple. On the other hand, there are people who reel back at the very notion of Jeeves, who think he signifies weak technology, slows down the site, and embodies over-commercialization and over promise. They would never use a site that had a butler on it.

To me, Jeeves was the go-to-guy on the Internet, a place to go to ask questions and it will be difficult to ever think of him as anything more.

So what does a mid-aged search engine butler do after he retires? Does he golf? Does he fish? Does he take in a few ball games? Does he become one of those slow Sunday-driving elderly that get mad when you step on their lawn? Well, whatever comes of Jeeves, I wish him all the best.

Peace out Jeeves... you'll be missed.

Labels: search-engine-marketing