At the beginning of Google's "Searchology" event in early 2007 original Google employee Craig Silverstein opined, "If Google had started a year or two earlier, it wouldn't have worked." That's because prior to that time (1998) the internet wasn't yet large enough to require Google or enable people to see the value of its approach. As sites and pages multiplied exponentially Google became an increasingly necessary tool. We're all familiar with the story. Now Google controls a majority of search traffic in most countries around the world. It has become a seemingly unstoppable force. The in [...]

Related Topics: Blekko | Features: Analysis | Google: Web Search | Search Engines: Cuil | Search Engines: Custom Search Engines | Search Engines: Open Directory Project | Search Engines: Powerset | Search Engines: Social Search Engines | Search Features: General | Top News

There are arguably two parallel tracks in the "what will succeed Google?" meme. An emerging one is "will the feds intervene to block Google?" The second is much older and involves the hypothetical "semantic web" or sometimes "deep web." Essentially this asks, "who will do search better than Google?" (A third line of argument might surround "social search.") Two pieces in two days in the NY Times reflect the two former strands. The first article is Everyone Loves Google, Until It’s Too Big and picks up on the monopoly discussion. I responded over the weekend on my personal blog Screenwerk. [...]

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After nearly two years in the making -- and plenty of hype -- Powerset has finally rolled out a "natural language" search engine. It's not a Google killer. It's barely a business model right now. But at least it's something the world can finally play with, and under the hood, there's lots of potential. By the time you read this, the Powerset site should have changed into a tool that allows you search against material within Wikipedia. Why bother using Powerset rather than using Wikipedia's own search tool or even Google set to look only within Wikipedia pages? The Powerset pitch is t [...]

Related Topics: Search Engines: Hakia | Search Engines: Powerset | Search Engines: Wikipedia | Search Features: Natural Language | Search Features: Query Refinement