VentureBeat - Latest Comments in Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

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Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Krishna Sapkota — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 05:48:47 -0000

No..if you want pizza powerset would not give you the possible result you are looking because it only index wiki and of course wiki does not contains information about eating pizza...may be it would give the expected answers if powerset indexes whole web in near future.

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

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Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Brian Cellars — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 01:42:37 -0000

Hi Matt,
A very interesting and informative article, and good comments from others. Even though this was written nearly 2 years ago, I suspect the search problems have yet to be solved. I'm just getting into website development and all the rest, but it seems to me that the search problem shouldn't be so difficult and the technology for it already exists. Why can't it just search the same way I search for stuff on my own computer. Lots of times i can't remember a file name or where I saved something, but I remember specific expressions contained in the file. I simply search for "A word or phrase in the file:" and presto, I find exactly what I'm looking for.

Thus, searching my computer using 'natural language', like: "Where's the best place for pizza in Jakarta.", I will find the file that has exactly that. Of course the search takes longer, but at least I find the file I'm looking for. Obviously doing this for the web is a massively bigger task, but the principles are basically the same aren't they. Essentially the search engine has to look for and find the expressions within the web pages rather than just in the meta tags.

Thanks and I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts on this concept.
Brian

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

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Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

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Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

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Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

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Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

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Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

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Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Ram Malik — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:14:04 -0000

I will like to invest a relatively a small number (say $50,000) now and may do so over a million over a period of time. Pl let me know as to work it out

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Sergey — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:37:59 -0000

Powerset is looking for big money to launch their new engine. Venture capitalists are always the best source of rumors.

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Rose Water — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 13:12:29 -0000

It sounds like they are excellent marketers, which usually means the technology isn't good.

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

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Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

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Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Sal — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 22:53:59 -0000

Search solved? Please.
Here, let's take an example..
User is an accountant, searching for "finance". Should he gets the same results as a student searching for "finance"? Or how about a housewife typing "loans" vs a banker typing "loans"?
It is quite amazing to me peopel who call themselves technologists or are in the field believe search is anywhere close to solved.

And on a 10m VC, while it may seem to be allot it may not be that much. Infrastructure, employess, technology, marketing, advertising, etc. You can easily spend that money in less then a year when trying to compete with the 5 big SE's. The money is big, the competition is fearless, and the startup capital most likely to be much more significant then other industries.

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Joe Hunkins — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 17:36:00 -0000

Search solved?! Are you kidding? The combination of spam, SEO manipulations, and especially time related issues (processing time, turnarounds on new content, etc.) means search is still in it's infancy. I have doubts Powerset has any magic bullet here but I'm floored you think the game is over.

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Dempsey — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 01:57:03 -0000

Some think by the time natural language query is cracked, the masses will only think in terms of keyword searches.

Hey Shannon,

"the problem of search has always also been one of getting from how I think about a topic and how others, who have written resources on that topic have written and thought about it"

In the field of Information Science (nee Librarianship), this is referred to as "the art of the reference interview." Just a plug for my profession (insert smiley face here).

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Shannon Clark — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 00:38:16 -0000

Search is far from solved - but it is also crucial to consider that "search" is really a LOT of very different and distinct things.

For example - I'm flying to NYC later this month, so I need to "search" for the best fares, flight times, hotel accomodations etc - keeping in mind not just what is available but also my personal needs and family/professional obligations (i.e. I'll trade spending more for arriving functional and in time to visit my sister). Google hasn't (yet) solved this, neither has great sites such as Kayak.com (though they are getting much, much better - they specifically don't usually show red eye options for some reason).

Even searches which I do on Google are often done in very different contexts - possibly even the nearly same search. I might be looking for "what movies are showing in San Francisco tonight" - and knowing Google treats it as a special search might search "movies San Francisco". Later that same day, however, I might want to write a blog post about movies that had been filmed in San Francisco - so I might start with the SAME search phrase "movies San Francisco" - but my purpose and context for the search has changed.

I've been performing electronic searches for over 16 years (yes, long before Google or the www, gopher space searches, online library catalogues etc) and the problem of search has always also been one of getting from how I think about a topic and how others, who have written resources on that topic have written and thought about it. Google does a good, but by no means perfect, job of addressing this - if I'm thinking in French (for example) and I search for "voiture" I'm highly unlikely to find any of the fantastic English sites for cars (or automobiles or autos etc).

And in anycase a single word search gives very little context to my search.

I wish Barney luck (full disclosure, I've corresponded with him over the years, long before he founded Powerset) - search has many aspects that could stand real improvement.

Shannon

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Jonathan — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 21:26:57 -0000

I totally agree, Matt. Natural language search and SEO-busting are both huge technical problems that will take years to solve. I'm happy to see someone stepping up and trying to join the competition in a big way. If these guys can attract top talent they'll inevitably make some of the breakthroughs, and the rewards are obviously huge. I'm excited to hear more about how they plan on doing this.

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Edwardo — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 16:50:47 -0000

My biggest gripe with Google (+Yahoo) is the signal to noise ratio. Having to manually filter out SEOs' efforts is time-consuming, and 'solving' search to me means filtering out that. I really don't care about natural language support in a typical web search (voice recognition is another story). If Powerset uses natural language to _make_ its search secret sauce, that's where it gets interesting.

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Matt Marshall — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 15:17:19 -0000

The founders have just agreed to meet with me, so I'll have answers to some of these questions in short order, though maybe not all of them. Stay tuned...

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Yakov — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 13:13:32 -0000

How is Powerset really different from the other web search startups?

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Matt Marshall — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 13:05:32 -0000

Ok, sure, natural language search you point to is clearly important, and Google has thinking about this and has been pouring resources into this since day one. Craig Silverstein, the first employee, says that is the ultimate goal of Google, but says it will take decades to get there, and even that might be optimistic. I guess I'm skpetical because Ask Jeeves (in its original form), and a string of other companies have come along over time saying they have solved the problem, and can answer your questions as written in the search bar, but the results have been underwhelming.

Re: Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google

Jonathan — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:57:45 -0000

Are you sure Google has really solved search?
If you search for "I want some pizza" in Google there are no results that take me closer to eating a pizza. "How much is powerset worth" doesn't give me any good information either. "Who writes venturebeat" doesn't bring up your name. "How much does an ipod nano cost" doesn't work, you have to type "ipod nano 1gb price."
There is plenty of room for improvement in general web search.