Comments on: Microsoft To Buy Powerset? Not Just Yet.

By: michaelwales.com » Microsoft Acquires Powerset

michaelwales.com » Microsoft Acquires Powerset — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:06:41 +0000

[...] has been acquired by Microsoft, a move that has been rumored for a long time and resurfaced this week. Microsoft has plans to integrate the company’s search and natural language features into [...]

By: Microsoft acquires Powerset | Microsoft News Tracker

Microsoft acquires Powerset | Microsoft News Tracker — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:42:45 +0000

[...] had been rumored last week, Microsoft has acquired Powerset, a semantic search and natural language processing startup based [...]

By: Ok, Now It’s Done. Microsoft To Acquire Powerset

Ok, Now It’s Done. Microsoft To Acquire Powerset — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:40:28 +0000

[...] resurfaced last week about the imminent [...]

By: On Powerset « On Technology

On Powerset « On Technology — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:17:30 +0000

[...] 1 07 2008 After reading that Microsoft wanted to buy Powerset for $100m I decided to have a go on the now legendary new search engine. I wasn’t amazingly, amazingly [...]

By: links for 2008-06-30 « Brent Sordyl’s Blog

links for 2008-06-30 « Brent Sordyl’s Blog — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:31:36 +0000

[...] Microsoft To Buy Powerset? Not Just Yet. VentureBeat is reporting that Microsoft has agreed to buy semantic search engine Powerset for somewhere around $100 million, which is the price we previously reported was being offered to the company. (tags: powerset crowdmind) [...]

By: Goran

Goran — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:11:54 +0000

Its an interesting search thought process. It will take some getting use to as we have all been using Googles search process, keyword 1 + keyword2 etc.

By: keremZ

keremZ — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:15:43 +0000

Powerset Is Not the Best Option for Microsoft…

Venture Beat reports that Microsoft is buying natural language search engine, Powerset for $100 million. This is the same price that TechCrunch previously reported. Some people might think that this is a good move by Microsoft to add natural-language s…

By: SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 27, 2008 | Techno Portal

SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 27, 2008 | Techno Portal — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:06:10 +0000

[...] Microsoft To Buy Powerset? Not Just Yet., TechCrunch [...]

By: Mark G.

Mark G. — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 20:16:18 +0000

Seems like MS is determined to lead the semantic space, search and advertising.

Fasten your seatbelts – the race has begun.

By: Alex Linhares

Alex Linhares — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:03:55 +0000

Powerset’s future is in the deadpool.

By: SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 27, 2008 | PAGE PROPELLER NEWS

SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 27, 2008 | PAGE PROPELLER NEWS — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:26:49 +0000

[...] Microsoft To Buy Powerset? Not Just Yet., TechCrunch [...]

By: News About Tech from all around the world » SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 27, 2008

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:24:49 +0000

[...] Microsoft To Buy Powerset? Not Just Yet., TechCrunch [...]

By: VentureBeat And Alley Insider Report Microsoft To Acquire Powerset | Pundit Watch – Track A-list Pundits From Politics, Technology and Entertainment

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:03:44 +0000

[...] acquire semantic search engine Powerset. Silicon Alley Insider is re-reporting the rumor. However, TechCrunch is saying that their sources are saying the deal hasn’t yet been signed (no [...]

By: Gus Swan

Gus Swan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:55:03 +0000

How about ’save your money’ rather than ‘too much’. There is so much hype around a product whose benefits have to be explained rather than be self-evident. I went to the site and asked it a pretty basic question – When did Shakespeare write twelfth night? If it cannot parse that kind of question there is little hope. I did not get a contextually valid response (i.e. what I was looking to know) on the first page of results. I actually got the info I needed from Google and Live. Where’s the improvement over what’s out there?

By: WestCoastAl

WestCoastAl — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:40:39 +0000

This thread is really starting to bore me. How about something beyond the “too much money” theme. I, for one, like celebrating deals like this – it gives us reinforcement that the majors are still buyers and decent prices. The day that stops, epic ritual suicide will follow.

By: Ich

Ich — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:01:33 +0000

A way too much money for such a site.

If Microsoft would be serious, they would be putting 100 million dollars a side, hire a few of the brightest engineers and give them a quarter million each year. They could replicate powerset in like half a year.

I’m pretty sure they are running out of money. What is their business model? There is none at all. Nobody goes to their site to search through wikipedia anyway. And their technology works on english text only (besides I still think that it’s purely based on filter lists)

By: Zach

Zach — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:00:04 +0000

Useless acquisition, surely.. One of the much-hyped search engine but really worthless.

By: SearchGuy

SearchGuy — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:31:24 +0000

@webwatch – I was interested and repeated your exact query, and the picture of each of the three founders and their names was the first thing I saw. What is your game here?

By: Webwatch

Webwatch — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:19:10 +0000

Funny, I searched Powerset for “who is the powerset founder”, and the only link that was actually returned about the company was titled: “Powerset (company) Luke Nosek, founder of PayPal … ↑ Powerset Founders.”

Luke is not even a founder.

Maybe I’m missing something, but after several searches, I was not able to find any demonstration of value here whatsoever, certainly not in the $100MM range.

By: SearchGuy

SearchGuy — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:17:03 +0000

It is fascinating to see niche semantic players cry out in desperation in comments: “Buy me, somebody – ANYBODY!” Get over it. Most of the folk mentioned here are science experiments at best.

To those in the semantic space: I think you should be kissing the rings of Hakia and Powerset for creating two businesses of value that you can draft behind.

By: Sam B

Sam B — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:24:11 +0000

@27: Would you buy a pizza from a company that was currently “pre-toppings”?

By: Falafulu Fisi

Falafulu Fisi — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:43:25 +0000

NLP based search (symbolic-type search) has limitations in terms of speed of speed and retrieval relevancy. On the other hand numeric-based search (PageRank, Latent Semantic Indexing, etc…) also have limitations but they’re more superior compared to NLP based search in terms of retrieval precision & recall, ie, numeric-based search performs better. Also the evolution of development in the numeric-based search domain is accelerating while the development in the domain of NLP search it is going at a much slower pace.

Certainly, I have seen researches that attempt to replicate the capability of NLP via numerical algorithm thus achieving the same goal/outcome as the symbolic NLP but taking advantage of the superiority of numeric-based methodologies.

By: Sociedad y todo los que nos rodea - Tecno Internet » Microsoft y la compra del buscador Powerset

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:02:11 +0000

[...] Amartino comenta que la compra ya se ha producido aunque en Techcrunch aún no lo dan por cerrado. Se habla de una compra por 100 millones de dólares, que compensarían [...]

By: Microsoft y la compra Powerset Loogic.com

Microsoft y la compra Powerset Loogic.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:39:09 +0000

[...] Amartino comenta que la compra ya se ha producido aunque en Techcrunch aún no lo dan por cerrado. Se habla de una compra por 100 millones de dólares, que compensarían [...]

By: Microsoft to buy Semantic Search Engine?

Microsoft to buy Semantic Search Engine? — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:35:44 +0000

[...] Update: Ink not on paper just yet. [...]