Ask.com has announced that it will be purchasing the online reference network of Lexico Publishing Group, which owns and operates Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com.
The move marks one of the first by the new IAC homegrown Safka regime of Ask.com, and Ask.com CEO Jim Safka says that the Lexico properties are an excellent fit into the Ask.com model, especially with “highly profitable, with high double-digit growth for a couple years.”
Truth be told, this is an impressive move by Ask.com because Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com will fit perfectly into the Ask.com 3D Blended Model of total information in search results, and if Ask.com uses Lexico information in their Smart Answers, they are keeping searches within IAC / Ask.com properties which are well respected across the web.
The acquisition should lift Ask.com’s user numbers by 11%, to a total monthly visitor count of somewhere around 145 million [CNET]
Furthermore, Lexico has a thriving browser toolbar download business, especially with students, a market which Ask.com has done a very fine job of monetizing.
All in all, despite Ask.com not yet releasing the terms of the acquisition, a very intelligent move by Ask.com and CEO Safka. I hope for more similar announcements to come out of the company.
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3 responses so far ↓
Igor The Troll on May 15, 2008 at 8:20 am
Loren, great combination, and I would also recommend they add Urbandictionary.com and Answers.com to their portfolio.
MarketingDeviant on May 15, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Smart move I would say. I always use dictionary.com or m-w.com for researching words.
ILoveGoogle on May 15, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Every one of IAC’s acquisitions and Ask’s acquisitions in the past has fallen flat. Even gotten negative. “Spin outs” after you have purchased these companies is another phrase for “didn’t work”. $100M for a dictionary site. — They could have used this in their Cinco De Mayo home page (where they spelled it WRONG).
Safka has no clue what he is doing. As for the toolbar business, very dirty…look into it and see how many of the toolbar’s Ask has (vs its subsidary MyWay). MyWay is banned on most spam lists.
Lanzone at least had a way to make the company look good.
Safka:
* Bumbles like mass layoffs (sure you will get top talent in a hot spot like Oakland after laying off 8% of your workforce)
* Going after Marge Simpson — what a business plan!
* Oh wait, we are not after Marge, just questions (like a million other startups: Powerset, etc…).
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