Comments on: Will Powerset Pull a Google?

By: Alfabetic :: Chinese » Blog Archive » 確定，收購已經開始。Microsoft收購Powerset

Alfabetic :: Chinese » Blog Archive » 確定，收購已經開始。Microsoft收購Powerset — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:47:12 +0000

[...] 我們首次報導Powerset在2006年10月，而那時他們是一家TechCrunch40的公司。 [...]

By: Microsoft Powerset- What’s the future « My Weblog

Microsoft Powerset- What’s the future « My Weblog — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:06:37 +0000

[...] Powerset, bringing better Wikipedia clips into Live Search looks like an afterthought from the original promise of the generation next search startup: gunning a true natural linguistic [...]

By: Powerset, The Neutered Version

Powerset, The Neutered Version — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:09:00 +0000

[...] acquired Powerset, but incorporating better Wikipedia clips into Live Search is a far cry from the original promise of the natural language startup: true natural language [...]

By: www.teletubis.info » Blog Archive » Powerset Will Launch In Coming Weeks

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 11:13:44 +0000

[...] version of the service in the coming weeks, the company told me yesterday. They are working on a new kind of search engine that will understand natural language searches and compete with keyword matching engines that [...]

By: Powerset Will Launch In Coming Weeks

Powerset Will Launch In Coming Weeks — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:13:18 +0000

By: Yeni Google Reader ve Google ig üzerine | Rasim Coşkun | Web Tasarım | Web Design

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 10:51:17 +0000

[...] arama motoru olan ve Hakia gibi yakında ismini sıkça duyacağımız Powerset ile alakalı bu ve şu yazıları; ve Web 2.0 ile biraz ilgileniyorsanız Altı Üstü Tasarım’daki bu güzel yazıyı [...]

By: First Public View Of Powerset Results

First Public View Of Powerset Results — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 08:35:04 +0000

[...] about showing the public how their search engine works. After some initial hype (see our posts here, here and here), the company pretty much shut its doors to the press. I did finally get in to see a [...]

By: Powerset Hype To Boiling Point

Powerset Hype To Boiling Point — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:16:47 +0000

[...] argues that the key to killing Google is in natural language search. We discussed this in detail in an earlier post about the company. While other search engines tend to ignore common words in search queries (words like [...]

By: Blog Mirrors » Powerset Hype To Boiling Point

Blog Mirrors » Powerset Hype To Boiling Point — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 09:28:57 +0000

[...] Powerset argues that the key to killing Google is in natural language search. We discussed this in detail in an earlier post about the company. While other search engines tend to ignore common words in search queries (words like “by”, “for”, “about”, “of”, and “in”), Powerset focuses on those words to try to determine meaning and context. Read CEO Barney Pell’s post about the natural search problem to get an idea of what they’re talking about. To get right to the point: Google treats the queries “book for children,” “book by children,” and “book about children” as equivalent to “book children.” Powerset, however, promises to serve results that are relevant to each query. [...]

By: Powerset Hype To Boiling Point

Powerset Hype To Boiling Point — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:08:31 +0000

By: Anima ex Machina » Blog Archive » Powerset against Google? in search for the search grial.

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:59:17 +0000

[...] http://ventureb...pany/#more-2087 http://www.tech...t-pull-a-google http://blog.lorenzothione.com/ http://www.barneypell.com/ [...]

By: TurkaPlus.Com | Teknolojinin Artı Noktası » Yeni Google Reader ve Google ig üzerine

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 16:29:12 +0000

[...] Bu arada, Google’a ve diğer arama motorlarına alternatif yeni bir arama motoru olan ve Hakia gibi yakında ismini sıkça duyacağımız Powerset ile alakalı bu ve şu yazıları; ve Web 2.0 ile biraz ilgileniyorsanız Altı Üstü Tasarım’daki bu güzel yazıyı tavsiye ederim. [...]

By: linguify - Christopher Johnson’s blog » Blog Archive » Natural language search: Powerset

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:10:58 +0000

[...] There’s a natural language search (NLS) startup that’s been getting lots of attention lately: Powerset. In response to this article in VentureBeat, many bloggers, including the likes of Michael Arrington and Danny Sullivan, have weighed in on the promise (or lack thereof) of NLS. It’s exciting to read all the different opinions and ideas about this topic. [...]

By: Antonio Valderrábanos

Antonio Valderrábanos — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:36:41 +0000

Speaking of running software in this area, we have developed a natural language interface for search engines for Spanish, not for English (although it’s under developement and will be out in the near future). You can test the Spanish version running against a complex and popular document collection in Spain, the BOE or Boletín Oficial del Estado.

The demo is available at http://www.bitext.com, Demos section; or at http://demos.bi...t.com/BOEBitext.

This demo runs with (the outstanding search engine) dtSearch. We plan to release soon another demo where we integrate our NLP software with MSN index and API.

For those of you with some competence in Spanish, please, try it and let us know.

Now let us add our two cents to the discussion.

1. For us a natural language interface should do at least three basic tasks

-spell check the query (and the docs, if possible)
-enrich the query with words that represent the same meaning as those used in the query, including but not only synonyms; in other words, expand recall
-allow the user to express his/her information need naturally, including the interpretation of complex phenomena like negation (holidays in the UK but no in London), disjunction (holidays in Manchester or Liverpool)

Besides, whenever possible, the same processing should be applied to the query and the indexed text.

2. Natural language is not the holy grial of search engines. Incorporating NLP technology to a search engine is adding an excellent complement that certainly provides very exciting advantages (usability and precision, mainly); however it doesn’t make a totally different application, it continues to be a search engine. In other words, a good search engine benefits from a natural language interface, but a poor one would not change drastically.

Thanks!
Antonio

By: Tekno Seyir » Blog Arşivi » Yeni Google Reader ve Google ig üzerine

Tekno Seyir » Blog Arşivi » Yeni Google Reader ve Google ig üzerine — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 13:58:09 +0000

By: Google Logs

Google Logs — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 20:20:21 +0000

All about Powerset Vs Google
http://googlelo...0/powerset.html

By: Talking for computers « Zelig

Talking for computers « Zelig — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 08:36:49 +0000

[...] Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Will Powerset Pull a Google?: So while I believe that search is far from perfect today I didn’t necessarily think that the solution was to create a better way for computers to understand what we meant. Frankly, I assumed that we’d continue to do a better job of talking in a way that computers understood, and advances would come in other areas (deep web, better algorithms, rich media search, etc.). Posted by zelig Filed in Technology, Google, Innovation, Search [...]

By: matthew

matthew — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 03:12:30 +0000

big brother? but didn’t google promise not to be “evil”? for the record, that was just adorable.

By: Google Rival « somewhere small start

Google Rival « somewhere small start — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 02:47:49 +0000

[...] Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Will Powerset Pull a Google?: ” I haven’t seen a demo of upcoming search engine Powerset yet, but reportedly many people who have are impressed, saying they’d never use Google again. Powerset wants to let people use natural language when searching, including some words that search engines ignore today (what founder Barney Pell calls “stopwords“). Like most people, I’ve learned to change my language when addressing a search engine. I use important keywords and leave everything else out. Some of these search habits have even overflowed into my personal communications, and I find quick IM and email discussions often look like crazy, meaningless words thrown back and forth. Ten years ago I’d have no idea what those discussions meant. Today, they are effective in getting through fast paced business conversations with people I’m already familiar with. So while I believe that search is far from perfect today I didn’t necessarily think that the solution was to create a better way for computers to understand what we meant. Frankly, I assumed that we’d continue to do a better job of talking in a way that computers understood, and advances would come in other areas (deep web, better algorithms, rich media search, etc.). But Pell lays out a convincing argument that natural language search is important in order to communicate meaning and intent. He uses example searches to make his point – “book for children”, “book by children”, and “book about children” are all equivalent to “book children” to search engines today. His core argument is that there may be no way for us to properly express the query “books by children” without using natural language. Powerset is looking for big money to launch their new engine. Venture capitalists are always the best source of rumors (the best time to hit them up for information is right after they’ve passed on a deal, or have lost it to another firm). If they don’t have a financial interest in the company, loose lips abound. With respect to Powerset, the rumors are that the company is trying to raise $10 million on a $20 million pre-money valuation. That’s a lot of money, but if Powerset pulls a Google, no one will care. [...]

By: Don Dodge

Don Dodge — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 02:45:44 +0000

What could an NLP search engine like Powerset do to improve the results of the query “synopsis of books about the civil war”? Barney Pell, founder of Powerset, uses this query as an example in his blog.

Take a look at these results from Microsoft’s Live Search. Better than Google in my opinion.

http://search.m...r&FORM=MSNH

Todays search engines do a great job of finding “books with a synopsis of the civil war”, but not a “synopsis of books…”. Understanding the query was not the problem. Aggregating the results and presenting them as a synopsis is what is not possible today. I don’t see how NLP search engines would improve the results. Am I missing something?

I was formerly a director of engineering at AltaVista so I have an ongoing interest in search issues. I wrote an indepth blog about this today. http://dondodge...set_natura.html

By: time in a vacuum » Blog Archive » Natural Language Searching Matters

time in a vacuum » Blog Archive » Natural Language Searching Matters — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 02:05:23 +0000

[...] TechCrunch has a post about upcoming search technology company Powerset which, I guess, has some real promise in bringing natural language searching to the public. [...]

By: Alex Choo

Alex Choo — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 01:57:15 +0000

This is a search engine that uses Yahoo’s Web services to pull in results. But it clusters them into groups and has related search terms and finds important keywords within the search results for deep search.

It’s really a demo for TicTap Contextual Ads (http://www.tictap.com/tca), but it works.

http://yws.tictap.com

By: WormInBuffet

WormInBuffet — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 00:29:58 +0000

bring it on! i’m getting tired of big brother google. we need new blood to keeps the big boys on their toes.

By: Jeff Singleton

Jeff Singleton — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 00:01:01 +0000

Umm. Real Language support is already included with Google searches. If you want the “stop words” included in the search, then wrap your query in quotes.

Powerset doesn’t stand a chance if all they do is to try and reinvent the wheel.

By: me

me — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:17:19 +0000

about the coolness of “powerset”:
abc = {a, b, c, ab, ac, bc, abc}