Publishing giant Hearst Magazines announced on Wednesday plans to acquire Answerology, a New York-based start-up that offers a question-and-answer service for relationship advice. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but PaidContent reported that it was in the seven figures.
Matthew Milner, Answerology's founder, will be brought on board Hearst as vice president of community and social media in the conglomerate's Hearst Magazines Digital Media unit.
Answerology's schtick is that it allows users to ask anonymous questions about family, marriage, dating, and other heated subjects pertaining to relationships, and those questions can be targeted toward select age groups, genders, geographic regions, and personality types (i.e. "thinker" or "intellectual.")
Most of the questions on Answerology, which seems to have an admirably active core community, pertain directly to relationships, like this one: "By 39 years of age, is it a little weird if a man is still single, no solid career path, not close with his family, and only a select few close friends?" (Answer: Yes, but things will get better if you take away his Xbox.)
Other subjects of discussion fall more into a general "lifestyle" niche, for example, "When do you think you'll be able to retire?" (Answer: Never! Ever!)
Hearst hasn't been quite as avid in the Web acquisition space as some of its publishing brethren, but it has made a few notable buys: for one, social-shopping site Kaboodle, which it purchased last year.
Even though question-and-answer sites are a dime a dozen, the lifestyle- and relationship-oriented Answerology seems like a good fit for a magazine publisher--indeed, Hearst plans to work it into the Web properties for its 15 magazine titles.
And it had a funny publishing-industry connection to begin with: founder Milner originally conceived of Answerology as a tie-in for a "romantic-comedy novel" he wrote, Guy Critical.
Just how much does Ask.com own the word "Ask?" Enough to have a problem with a question-and-answer site called "Askpedia," apparently. Representatives from the start-up Askpedia.com told CNET News.com that the search engine's parent company, InterActiveCorp, sent a cease-and-desist letter earlier this month, citing intellectual property violations in the name "Askpedia."
"(This) is likely to cause consumer confusion, particularly inasmuch as Askpedia purports to provide online informational services that are substantially similar to those provided by Ask," the letter dated March 13 reads. "In using and incorporating Ask's intellectual property in this manner, Askpedia is falsely suggesting a connection between Ask and Askpedia, and thereby misappropriating the substantial good will associated with Ask's trademarks."
IAC representatives were contacted to verify the contents of the cease-and-desist letter, but were not immediately available for comment.
Ask.com's trademark on the name was first filed April 28, 1999, when the company was still known as Ask Jeeves and had not yet been acquired by the Barry Diller-helmed IAC in 2005. These days, the search engine has been undergoing a restructuring process in order to handle its tepid market share.
The letter, signed by Edward T. Ferguson, IAC senior vice president and general counsel, and provided to CNET News.com by Askpedia representatives, goes on to request that Askpedia "cease and desist from all use of Ask's trademarks and other intellectual property, including without limitation in the name 'Askpedia' or any similar formation using the word 'ask,'" and agree not to do so in the future.
A deadline of 10 days was provided, meaning that IAC would presumably seek legal action after Sunday, March 23.
Yong Su Kim, CEO of Askpedia, which describes itself as "a knowledge marketplace for questions and answers" and awards cash prizes to the best answers, said that his small start-up has about 100,000 registered users. He sent an e-mail to CNET News.com in which he speculated that "our guess is that their lawyers have nothing better to do."
Kim continued, "Either that or they're working on a Wikipedia-like service and want the domain name and trademark."
Time Warner unit AOL announced early Monday morning that it has acquired Yedda, a question-and-answer start-up that was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2006. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The acquisition, according to a release from AOL, was all about Yedda's code: the patent-pending semantic technology "automatically matches questions to other related questions and topics, while selecting the best available users to answer the question." Yedda-powered features are set to begin appearing on AOL's sites over the next few months.
AOL makes plenty of acquisitions, but most of the recent ones have been directly related to its renewed role as an advertising-focused media company. Last week, the company, which recently decided to move its headquarters to New York, purchased advertising-technology company Quigo, and in the spring, it acquired cell phone advertising firm Third Screen Media.
Questions spotted on Yedda, for the record, range from the practical to the bizarre--from "What was the name of the woman (model?) in the '80s video 'I Got My Mind Set On You" by George Harrison?" to "How can I install Boot Camp on an external drive?" to "How to build a barn owl cage?"
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