Travel Search Goes Green

Sep 30, 2008 at 12:24pm ET by Elisabeth Osmeloski

With a couple of Stanford graduates as founders, a new entrant to the online travel space officially launched its beta site today, WholeTravel.com. Following a small but growing trend in the travel search space, Whole Travel uses what they call "Blue Sky Search", or the ability for searchers to use open-ended experiential queries, rather than inputting specific location data, airport codes or exact dates for travel. Searchers on WholeTravel.com are encouraged to type in eco-friendly activities (mountain trekking, wildlife tours, canoeing) or broad destination ideas such as "rainforest" o [...]

Filed in: Search Engines: Travel Search Engines, Search Features: Natural Language

Powerset Launches “Understanding Engine” For Wikipedia Content

May 12, 2008 at 12:01am ET by Danny Sullivan

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 [...]

Filed in: Search Engines: Hakia, Search Engines: Powerset, Search Engines: Wikipedia, Search Features: Natural Language, Search Features: Query Refinement

Changes At Natural Language Search Company Powerset

Nov 2, 2007 at 1:37pm ET by Vanessa Fox

Big management changes are going on at Powerset, which has received much attention for its potential in using natural language processing for search. Barney Pell, who has been CEO at Powerset, posted today in his blog that he is transitioning to CTO, that Steve Newcomb, who had been COO, is leaving the company, and that Ron Kaplan, who had been CTO and Chief Science Officer, is now solely Chief Science Officer. The company is currently looking for a CEO. Several companies have been taking the natural language angle in creating the next generation search engine, but turning the potential into [...]

Filed in: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Search Engines: Hakia, Search Features: Natural Language

Social Networking Through Search: Hakia Helps You Meet Others

Oct 31, 2007 at 8:00pm ET by Vanessa Fox

Hakia, a natural language search engine, has just added a new spin to search: social networking. Their new Meet Others feature lets you connect with others who are searching for the same things you are. Since Hakia processes queries differently than old school search engines such as Google, you aren't just matched up with people who typed in the exact query you did -- you're matched with a larger set of searchers that Hakia thinks are looking for the same things you are based on natural language processing. For instance, if you're searching for "what drug treats a headache," Hakia processes t [...]

Filed in: Search Engines: Hakia, Search Engines: Other Search Engines, Search Features: Natural Language

Powerset Licenses Xerox PARC Natural Language Tech

Feb 9, 2007 at 9:37am ET by Danny Sullivan

Both VentureBeat and the New York Times are out today with an update on Powerset, which has won the rights to natural language search technology from Xerox PARC that it hopes will make it into the new Google, when Powerset finally launches. VentureBeat also gives us news of at least one person from Yahoo now working there -- Tim Converse -- who left Yahoo in December. I know others from Yahoo are also at Powerset, as well. Last time we had news about Powerset, I did a big long rant -- Hello Natural Language Search, My Old Over-Hyped Search Friend -- about the hype and history often associat [...]

Filed in: Business Issues: General, Search Engines: Hakia, Search Engines: Other Search Engines, Search Features: Natural Language

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