Ask.com, an operating business of IAC/InterActiveCorp, has announced the formation of a new development center in Hamburg, Germany. The company also announced the appointment of Eric Heymann as director of global content acquisition for Ask.com. The former head of technology at Seekport, Heymann will lead the development team in Hamburg.

The Hamburg team will focus on global search technology research and development, working directly with the Ask.com R&D centers in Pisa, Italy, Hangzhou, China, Campbell, Calif., and Piscataway, N.J. As director of global content acquisition for Ask.com, Heymann will play a role in the development of core technologies that power the Ask.com search engine. Specifically, Heymann and his team will focus on crawling technologies to index global web content, including web pages, images, news, and blog content.

(www.ask.com)