When Powerset announced plans to launch a new service called Powerlabs a week ago, it looked to be another sand box area for product previews, like those created by Microsoft, Google and others.But today Steve Newcomb, COO of Powerset, revealed a lot more about the project. I also saw an in person demo of Powerlabs today and some of the ideas behind it.
Powerlabs is more than a sandbox to show off new product ideas that aren’t ready for prime time. They are encouraging people interested in Powerset to sign up for Powerlabs and create what is effectively a profile. Once registered, users will be able to see new product ideas and vote on them, as well as submit their own ideas to the community. Later on, users will gain points and influence within the community.
In the demo today the company showed me one idea that they will be putting into Powerlabs once it launches – a mashup of Powerset natural language results along with video results, keyword results and, interestingly, Freeweb results (the two companies are working together). See the screen shot to the right (click for larger view).
Powerlabs hasn’t launched yet, but you can register for it via email on the Powerset home page. They are sending out regular communications to those users, including news at least an hour before its posted on the Powerset blog or given to press. In an email today, Powerset revealed that they have acquired another company, although they did not give any further details.
It is simply amazing how the DIGG concept has penetrated so much of Web 2.O – previously, no one trusted the users, or egos prevented anyone from sharing influence
This is an interesting concept, and those with great ideas will probably have an easier time getting funded based on the feedback they get on that site.
But as always, there is one caveat – people stealing new ideas or developers from large firms ‘one-up’ing’ the original idea with deep pockets.
So if approached to sell, those sellers may not have much of a choice
Arrington..Have some sleep..dont worry..ll cover rest of the news tonight.
Brilliant!! Execution will matter, but it’s a great idea. Kudos to Powerset.
http://www.interactions20.com/
Hallmark is doing this for years.. yea..it works..also it works to get too much PR for too little things…
It works, alright…and launches have always been welcome in the internet fraternity. The real concern is will it be able to survive in the crowd? Anyway, I wish it come here to stay. All the best Powerset!:)
Do I see keyword search results at the bottom of there screenshot, as guess thats in case the fancy smancy NL search results are bunk.
Oh, and a social network, with voting ! this baby is cruising now.
Seriously though, one of the inputs (that will be withheld) from there predictive growth small (aka spreadsheet) must be how many times does TC write about us.
Another example of poor judgement on the of Powerset. How about launching your SEARCH ENGINE? It’s always a BAD sign for a company to announce the launch of numerous apps before the core product launches. What are these guys telling us? Is it that their early research shows that an NLP-based engine doesn’t yield better results than Google?
My money is betting against these guys.
stone: exactly. It truly amazes me how much Powerset is trying to do before its core application is even launched. Just based on this, and all the premature hype, I’m betting against them too.
The other angle is that Powerset is hoping to be acquired before actually having to launch … and with all this TC backing … it just may happen.
Of course Powerlabs hasn’t launched yet. Of course they acquired a company and won’t say which one. Lots of talk about future stuff. You know what really hypes up a product? Actually releasing it! What an idea! This is going to be a huge disappointment because I highly doubt that they can live up to the hype. Not only that but I can’t wait to see what their marketing budget will be. If they want to do the whole viral thing, it will kill them as so many people (here especially) are betting against them.
I know everyone is being bias and have self conflict of interest. This is what everyone believes…
1. Steve Newcomb does not have hair.
2. No hair means gold digger!
3. There is no hype. I’ve been powerset.com. Hype just rip my soul off.
They’re probably too embarrassed to reveal their main idea without having something else going for them.
Maybe this desperate thrashing about will lead to their actually discovering something of value and save them. Good for them for trying.
So they are releasing Labs? before the final product?
– or even announcing it? and TC is covering it?
– 4 Q’s no A’s
– RB
They have to do “100%” stand up presentation its either pell or newcomb.
mylivesearch.com
Porn is one of the categories under dashboard……?(the first screen shot)
I don’t think these guys really have a solid model at all. All hype..let’s throw a bunch of sh*% in the air and see what sticks.
And this sounds like a stupid nitpick, but I can’t get over the lame name “powerset”…..it doesn’t sound like something that will ever be huge and viral in non-tech households.
But boy do I wish someone would knock google off their thrown….excite, altavista, yahoo, google…………next.
Good to know I can quickly get to all my Porn from the dashboard!
So you did get my email, Mike.
Freewebs or Freebase? You say “Freeweb” but link to an article on “Freebase”.
Useless company – Powerset…oh yea, i want to do my searches on ‘Powerset’. ‘Can you powerset that’, ‘You can find that on powerset’. Please get a good site name first.
@ Suman Namburi:
…and is it me, or has the image been Photoshopped so that the area around the ‘porn’ link is less blurry than the rest of it?