Bad Scene

I think it’s nice when things I think are cool get attention. Sometimes the attention is academic (for del.icio.us), sometimes content publishers want in on the act (for grouphug.us), and sometimes entire systems change hands (good old Flickr). All these things are more or less okay by me, not that those involved cared to ask.

But here’s something I almost missed: Ask Jeeves got bought by IAC, Barry Diller’s outfit. Just go to their Flash-clogged home page and you’ll see the tons of other Internet property they own. I find this a little icky and creepy, along the lines of the AOL/TimeWarner merger, although I couldn’t say exactly why. But David Lazarus of the SF Chron apparently had the same feeling, and put his finger on it - pure marketing evil.