When looking at Ask.com compared to Google, Ask looks like a failure, but I wouldn't mind being the Ask.com of online video guides.

It's still one of the top 50 sites worldwide (according to Alexa at least), with a fraction of the employees of google and a pretty good demographic of users who click on ads. Its history may not be stellar but as a business, it's not a bad company.

Disclaimer: I used to work at Ask.com so I might not be all that objective.

> Disclaimer: I used to work at Ask.com so I might not be all that objective.

You're probably not, but IMO you're right. As long as you're making money, you're not a failure. When you owe money and have no hope of turning it around, that's when you're a real failure.

That sentence cannot possibly be legal, right? I mean, you can answer the question "are you raising money?" with a "yes", but that sentence strikes me as sufficiently similar to a securities offering.

(I'd love to know I was wrong - I'd put a funny line at the end of every blog post I do for Dawdle.)

Securities offerings only need be regulated if they have over a certain number of investors (I believe 100). There's nothing wrong with asking people to invest in your company.

I think I'm going to need to see a source for that.

Good catch!

I don't think it's a nice quote because it's about Clicker losing. Doesn't sound like a convincing pitch. The whole "let's not read the article because I might not like what I see" attitude also doesn't inspire confidence.

His honesty and frankness is cool, though.

Maybe sometimes you have to know when to focus on your product, and when to focus on your competitor's. What he said sounds pretty straightforward: they were busy, in a critical part of their business development, and he knew that looking at their knew competitor would just distract him from what his team was already doing.

He didn't ignore it altogether, he just waited for the right time.

When you're forced to act as both infantry and general, sometimes you have to ignore your general duties for short periods of time so you can live long enough to the general again.