Powerset Launches as Wikipedia Tool - Where Powerset Fits
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For some time, I've seen a debate going on about the future of search, and whether it's going to be search as we know it now, or look more like “discovery” going forward. When you search for something on the Internet, you usually have a target of some sort in mind. You may be looking for an easy-to-use digital camera, for example, or what's playing at the local movie theaters (remember when we used to call the theater for that information?).
Discovery is different. Your query is your starting point, but a simple answer is not your end point. If you're looking for information on multiple sclerosis, for example, you may be satisfied with an overview, or you may want to dig more deeply into the topic. Todd Leyba wrote about this topic last year, noting that a discovery engine, as opposed to a mere search engine, “provides various facets of the result set in the form of navigational links. These links represent different dimensions of the result set and allow you to drill down or sideways depending on the facet.”
Powerset, then, is clearly a discovery engine. That doesn't mean it can't be used as a search engine, or even in combination with one. In fact, Michael Arrington, writing for Techcrunch, makes an interesting observation: Powerset's technology would work well with some of the other search engines out there. Indeed, the company seems prepared to either go it alone OR sell itself. Arrington notes that “They hired Dave Wehner, a Managing Director at investment bank Allen & Co. (he's the guy who sold Bebo for $850 million to AOL, and is working on LinkedIn's huge financing), to represent them in a possible sale or financing.”
So who might be interested in buying Powerset? CNet reported rumors that Microsoft might be nosing around, though both Powerset and Microsoft refuse to comment. The software giant certainly has some cash to spend after walking away from a purchase of Yahoo. And they may be more interested than either Google or Yahoo, since they have more to gain – this would give them a technology that Google doesn't have, and a possible edge if they can get it to work appropriately.
Even if nobody buys Powerset, the company has a certain amount of potential going forward. Content-rich sites challenge search engines because their technology doesn't really understand the meaning behind words (check out Danny Sullivan's article, linked to earlier, for a good explanation of how search engines use key words to figure out relevance). Such sites would do well to license Powerset's technology.
Indeed, that might work out better for the company than searching the web as a whole. Sullivan noted that “it takes Powerset about a month to comprehend Wikipedia's 2.5 million topic pages. In that time, many of those pages will have changed – thus needing to be reread again. Powerset's impressive, but with the web having in excess of 20 BILLION [emphasis in original] constantly changing pages, this is no overnight secret weapon that Microsoft might buy and employ to take the search lead.” In short, Powerset might not be a Google killer, but for those of us who like to draw interesting connections in our research, or have lots of content to organize, it could be a good friend.
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