As his search engine Ask.com inches toward irrelevance, besieged IAC CEO Barry Diller has found another crowded market to pour cash into: videogames. According to Variety, Diller plans to invest $50 million to $100 million of IAC's money on InstantAction, a new site from recently acquired IAC subsidiary GarageGames. GarageGames doesn't develop games quite so "casual" as the type Mark Pincus's Zynga produces, but the venture's product will still be Internet-based games made for those who don't want to waste time in front of a TV. Just like everyone else in the market, only a year or two later.

Barry Diller is easily bored. First, he was entranced by the promise of e-commerce, assembling an empire that includes such diverse offerings as Evite, the Home Shopping Network, and Ticketmaster. Then he turned his attention to search and snapped up Ask.com. With such a motley portfolio, why not add a jack-of-all-trades videogame company to your portfolio? Diller, the CEO of holding company IAC/InterActiveCorp, is focusing his energies on the videogame sector now. By acquiring a majority stake in GarageGames, which does everything from development tools and game creation to indie game publishing, Diller hopes to complement the yet-to-be launched InstantAction.com. But as usual, Diller's strategic vision isn't matched by his grasp of the technical details.