San Francisco-based Internet startup Powerset began testing search technology Sunday that it hopes will lead  to pulling better answers from the Web by understanding the meaning of written information online instead of the simpler keyword matching techniques widely used today by top search engine companies Google, Yahoo and IAC InterActiveCorp's Ask.com. The Powerset test began with searches limited to millions of pages of information from user-generated encyclopedia Wikipedia and Metaweb Technologies' online database Freebase, that can be queried using natural language phrasing such as "What is the capital of Guam?" Powerset software has analyzed every word and sentence of text from Wikipedia and Freebase to gauge their meaning, and uses its technology to show what it says are more relevant answers to searchers' questions. Xerox Subsidiary And Proprietary Search Technology Powerset, founded in October 2005, aims to free users from having to type in the exact words they want to find and instead will match a query written the same way one might speak in a conversation with the most relevant information available based on what the Powerset technology considers the core meaning of Web pages. Powerset attempts to change the present method of Web search which often requires following multiple links each of which might itself require more research, by presenting more detailed answers through improved search matching. The company announced the test on its blog. In the limited test form that Powerset began Sunday users are not able to search the entire Web as most other search engines do, with the company instead focusing on showcasing how its technology works with data from Wikipedia and Freebase, which it was able to copy to its own servers and analyze with the full approval of both organizations. Future Powerset expansion plans include partnerships with other firms whose Web sites are well suited to utilizing the company's search methods, such as government information and other Wikipedia-like Web projects, and may eventually include a search of all Web information, Powerset officials said. "We think it'll be a situation where publishers will want their content to be served up in this way," said Powerset general manager Scott Prevost in a recent InfoWorld report. "Our technology fully scales," Prevost added, and said that he expects the amount of information, or "data sets," Powerset indexes to start growing over the next month and to eventually compete on an indexing volume level with the current leading search engines. Blog entries and news articles are expected to be among the first additional types of Web information added, the company said. Powerset Testing Semantic Web Search With Wikipedia For more than a year Powerset, which has 60 employees who are mostly computational linguists and computer  scientists, has garnered press attention as a possible giant killer which could eventually pose a threat to the dominance of Mountain View, California-based Google, however Sunday's test launch is the first move towards any such ambitions the company may possess. While the test was launched without advertising agreements, Powerset expects to bring in revenue through selling advertising to be displayed on its Web site, although it lacks an advertising staff presently and has only a small marketing team. Much of the attention Powerset has gotten has revolved around its likely acquisition appeal to Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, which some analysts expect could use Powerset's search technology to improve its own Live Search service, especially in the wake of the recent collapse of its pursuit of the second most popular search engine company Yahoo. Wikipedia Information Easier To Search, Firm Says The present Powerset test will make Wikipedia easier to search, the company said. "This broad content base is a great way for us to showcase Powerset's functionality while giving people a faster time to satisfaction," said Powerset co-founder and chief technology officer Barney Pell. Pell, a former NASA research scientist, said the test is aimed at giving users a taste of a better search engine. "This is just to whet users' appetites for more and more," said Pell in a recent San Jose Mercury News report. Users of the Powerset test can search Wikipedia and see annotated entries on results pages, and related ideas the company calls "Factz" that show overview summaries of search queries and are able to bring users directly to the most relevant portion of a Web page. The company may add Web image and video or other forms of specialty search engines in markets such as travel, health and product reviews, Prevost said. The roots of the technology Powerset has implemented in the test launched Sunday date back more than three decades to methods founded by Xerox's famed Palo Alto Research Center subsidiary, which the company has combined with its own in-house technology. Prevost said that the meaning of information and not simple text matching is what Powerset does best. "Meaning is what we index," he noted. "We're changing the way information is searched by doing a much deeper analysis of the pages we index," Prevost added. Enters a Search Market Ripe With Rivals Contextual search engine firm Powerset has joined other search engine startups such as Twine, Mahalo, Hakia and Cuill in the pursuit of a share of the search engine market, and appeared financially ready to make a sizable push having received about $20 million from investors that included Foundation Capital, Amidzad, CommerceNet and the Founders Fund. It is likely to need all the investment money it can get to purchase the vast amount of computing hardware that would be needed if it plans to apply its computationally-intensive search methods to the whole of the Web. One member of the online discussion forums operated by WebmasterWorld, a community of webmasters and search engine marketing (SEM) professionals founded by chief executive Brett Tabke, sees the type of semantic and linguistic technologies being tested by Powerset as worthwhile. "In my opinion, this has always been a good concept, but with less than satisfying implementations. Another startup trying similar things (that is worth a test or two) is Hakia," wrote a member using the handle "Receptional Andy." Related Links:
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11:52 pm on May 12, 2008 (utc 0)