Microsoft Acquires Powerset

Posted By: Dan Fernandez | Jul 2nd @ 12:31 PM
Things are heating up in the world of search! Today on the Live Search blog, Microsoft announced that it had acquired Powerset, a natural language and search company. 

Check out the Powerset demo video to learn more.

Here's a snippet from the Live Search blog post:

[The] vision is to take Search to the next level by adding understanding of the intent and meaning behind the words in searches and webpages.

We know today that roughly a third of searches don't get answered on the first search and first click. Usually searchers find the information they want eventually, but that often requires multiple searches or clicks on multiple search results. Two specific problems are the most common reasons for this:

  • Differences in phrasing or context between a user's search and the way the same information is expressed on webpages. Search engines don't understand today that "shrub" and "tree" are similar concepts. We don't understand that "cancer" sometimes refers to a disease and sometimes refers to a horoscope and when a query or a webpage refers to which.
  • Lack of clarity in the descriptions for each webpage in the search results. Sometimes a result looks relevant from its short description on the results page but turns out to be not so relevant when you visit the actual page. As a result, searchers frequently click results and then rapidly click back when they realize they aren't what they're looking for.

You can try out the engine yourself by going to: www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/SearchTermGoesHere
Here are the Powerset Search results for Channel 9
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#Jul 2nd @ 2:59 PM
figuerres
figuerres
???
I hate to say it but I am tired of hearing about Microsoft and search.

I have never been impressed with MSFT web seraches and Google does just fine.

I would rather see MSFT spend money on other stuff and just forget about Yahoo, Google and the rest...

sorry but that's how I see it -- a waste of time and cash.
#Jul 3rd @ 2:56 AM
northerngeek
northerngeek
I would disagree, I think Microsoft does better than Google for search, especially in Maps, Images and Video- this Powerset aquisition could potentially fill the void in Web search. The idea that it's a waste because a company "does just fine" isn't going to lead to any innovation and frankly Google disappoints me on a regular basis, so I for one really love MS being in the picture.

My main concern is that the Powerset aquisition won't have a big enough effect to help MS on mindshare- people can and will move from one to another e.g. MySpace → Facebook, granted searching means a completely different sort of problem but semantic search could be the key- I just hope Powerset gets enough resources to sort out all of the rough edges (of which there are many).


Aquisitions like:

Jellyfish
Medstory etc

Are fantastic and have caused many friends of mine to take another look, people just aren't satisfied until they get a solution that works for everything in one place... which Powerset may fertilise.
#Jul 3rd @ 5:54 AM
BlackTiger
BlackTiger
If you stumbled and fell down, it doesn't mean yet, that you're going in the wrong direction.
Hopefully "natural language search" will work in WDS/Vista. Current implementation is... well, standard search works better.
#Jul 3rd @ 12:54 PM
Dan
Dan
Agree, it would be great to have natural language search in Vista or available as an API service for application developers or heck, even in Team Foundation Server: Give me all files updated on this date in any branch that use foo.dll.

If it works, it would be great Smiley
#Jul 3rd @ 1:12 PM
figuerres
figuerres
???
sure I want to see better search....  just that (in My view wich may be totaly wrong) there are lot's of things for MSFT to do....
at some point someone needs to get a focus on what things to do first.

for example the work on SIlverlight, WPF, XNA and Game Studio, Paralell for .Net , Mesh, Live, Office, SQL and the list keeps going on and on and....

sure they have a lot of smart people to throw at stuff and a lot of cash to use but....

kind of like the one about a dogs legs, if they each try to go a different way then the dog goes no where.

In My opinion I'd rather see more work done on a few less projects ....

for example what will it take to get a huge market shift on search to move folks to the MSFT search ?

Vs.  doing more work on things like Silverlight, Windows V Next or some other issues.

Just my POV, might be very wrong etc....
#Jul 4th @ 1:11 PM
Kris Olson
Kris Olson
Two more interesting posts on the Powerset acquisition:

1. by Don Dodge of the MIcrosoft Emerging Business Team talks about how it works, in layman's terms
http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/blogs/the_next_big_thing/archive/2008/07/02/why-powerset-is-important-and-different.aspx

2. By Lewis Shepherd,  the new CTO of the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments, talks about some of the research that Microsoft has done in search. He also knows Powerset really well as a company.
http://lewisshepherd.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/semantic-reality/