Ask.com: Lanzone Out, Safka In

InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller named former Match.com chief Jim Safka to head up its Ask search unit. Safka becomes the latest exec shuffled ahead of IACI's break-up into five separately traded companies later this year. Both Ask.com and Match.com will remain part of IAC, while the financial, HSN, Ticketmaster, and Interval International become separate companies.

Safka replaces Jim Lanzone, who will get a desk and phone at venture firm Redpoint Ventures, where he's be an entrepreneur- in residence.

Safka has his work cut out for him, and Diller knows it. Yesterday Diller said that while the technology that powers the search engine itself is "better than I could have ever hoped for", search users refuse to try the service out: "We certainly have not bitten an inch out of the hide of Google...I've been daunted by the progress of that."