I love it when search engines decide to dump their big brother partners and foray into their own space. Ask Jeeves will be launching their own advertising network mid-August. They will still display Google ads, but below their own. I assume at some point, they will dump Google ads completely. This is good news because it gives advertisers more options and more choices.
It is imperative to SEOs that we have as many "baskets" as possible in which to place our "eggs". This is important both in rankings as well as in advertising. If any one search engine holds a monopoly over either search or advertising, we lose. Any type of problem we encounter with one search engine will cause less of a problem if there are other search engines that we can depend upon. Cheers to competition! Good luck to Ask Jeeves with their new venture.