Marketing Pilgrim

Today we, finally, say goodbye to Ask’s butler and welcome a cleaner, more streamlined version of Ask.com.

As part of the rebranding to “Ask.com”, the search engine rolls-out a whole host of new features.

* New Homepage: A new sleek design, the page is cleaner and more straightforward.

* The Ask.com “Toolbox�?: Homepage shortcuts to more than 20 search tools, including maps, images, weather, dictionary, local and desktop search. The Toolbox is easily customizable to include the tools someone uses most. The Toolbox can be opened or closed depending on user preference.

Over at the Fortune Interactive blog, VP of Technology Mike Marshall looks at how pre-installing Google on Dell computers will help the search engine marketing industry.

Hot off the wire…

Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Co-Founder and President of Technology Sergey Brin today announced the launch of a pilot program to make holdings of the National Archives available for free online. This non-exclusive agreement will enable researchers and the general public to access a diverse collection of historic movies, documentaries and other films from the National Archives via Google Video as well as the National Archives website.

More here.

Yahoo has expanded their relationship with Wikipedia.

Now, as part of our larger effort to get people more answers in fewer clicks, when you see a Wikipedia result in Yahoo! Search, we’ll also include a section of links directly to the main sections of the Wikipedia entry, so you can quickly get to the exact information you’re looking for.

Here’s an example…

Mathew Ingram has evidence that suggests a voicemail service will soon launch for Google Talk and that a calendar will not be far behind.

A Google calendar – with the ability to share with co-workers – would rock! We’d be able to switch to OpenOffice and then use GMail for email and calendar. Fingers-crossed.

Via Sid.

Google has announced they’ll be hosting an Analyst Day on March 2nd. Presentations by Google’s management team are scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. PT and conclude by approximately 2:00 p.m. PT.

This event will be made available via Webcast at http://investor.google.com/webcast.

Well, well, well. What’s next? Quarterly guidance?

We promise, Jeeves is retiring, he’s just taking his time. Ask provides us with a humorous video of the butler’s departure.