John Battelle's Searchblog

Who might buy Teoma? How about Comcast?

Comcast plans to unveil, later this year, a "branded", cordless phone which will carry "search" - Teoma's search engine? Comcast's "in-home" sales channel - oops - phone - will be used by none other than Moms, or even small businesses. Filtered, targeted results. Sporting the top 8 slices on a mobile or cordless, hand-held device - pizza is certainly one of those rich, local advertising keywords. Teoma search technology would facilitate for Comcast a more creative, easy interface integrating email, voice mail, on-demand video selection and conducting personal product and service searches. Share a Slice.

Let's not forget the growing casual gaming community, a demographic skewed toward women - particularly Moms - with the potential for massive experiential event marketing programs. According to the Casual Game Association, casual gaming is a $2.25 billion a year marketing, currently growing 20% annually. Online games, the third most popular activity behind email and IM, on a Comcast branded, cordless phone. Priceless. Comcast's triple play is a bundle, indeed. Ask any Mom how often she "picks up the phone" to order pizza.

A year ago on a zdnet blog, Jim Lanzone, former CEO, Ask.com, referring to himself as a "chef" -- remixing content ingredients to create a better search experience -- remarked:

"The vision for Ask, both internally and with IAC, is not just a website with a bunch of links to other IAC properties. We are a world-class technology company and we are able to take ingredients from our sister companies, luckily in many cases premium ingredients because they are number 1 and 2 in their category, and we can remix those ingredients into something that is market leading in a particular vertical. That is exactly what we did with AskCity.

We took ingredients from a lot of companies, but not just IAC companies, we mix it all together into the best local search product online. That is how IAC and Ask can really accelerate the curve for each other. At the end of the day it can be a virtuous circle, by driving them traffic. But as a consumer based product, especially one that is free, you have to lead with what is best for the user. That is our focus."

It is clear that Ask.com has always been a Google universal search engine, but it will be the new IAC media/advertising businesses that integrate data and turn IAC investment web properties like Ask.com into a "premium portal." Moms (and kids) always "lead with the best." This Cool-Aid Mom thinks IAC's, Barry Diller, and Comcast's Brian Roberts, have been cooking up recipes with me in my kitchen.