Comments on: Powerset vs. Cognition: A Semantic Search Shoot-out

By: 9 Semantic Search Engines That Will Change the World of Search

9 Semantic Search Engines That Will Change the World of Search — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:41:58 +0000

[...] APIs for access to these technologies. I could not locate the free search, but definitely with the showdown featured on GigaOM, the product has its utility. And it also provides a definite business [...]

By: jules

jules — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:49:57 +0000

See next link of a Semantic Search engine based on a Text-meaning theory from a linguistic called Mel’cuk which seems to be on the way of providing natural language and semantic searchs for the users:

http://www.inbenta.com/index.php/en/meaning-text-theory.html

By: Cognition Releases the Largest Semantic Map of English Language | Profy | Internet news and commentary

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:13:03 +0000

[...] Cognition, creator of an already much-discussed natural language processing technology, is announcing release of its new semantic map which is the largest one ever created for English [...]

By: WinExtra - From the Pipeline – 6.8.08

WinExtra - From the Pipeline – 6.8.08 — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:55:21 +0000

[...] Powerset vs. Cognition: A Semantic Search Shoot-out :: GigaOM – with semantic search being all the snitz these days Nitin Karandikar takes a look at two of the front runners in the race to the marketplace. [...]

By: Cognition Technologies gets $2.7M to improve semantic search » VentureBeat

Cognition Technologies gets $2.7M to improve semantic search » VentureBeat — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:16:12 +0000

[...] more relevant results through Cognition. GigaOM also compared the two companies recently in “a semantic search shoot-out” and found that Cognition does better when “hardcore semantic parsing” is [...]

By: The Search for Semantic Search « Semiotica

The Search for Semantic Search « Semiotica — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:15:18 +0000

[...] search engines, there are semantic search engines akin to Hakia, such as Cognition, as mentioned in this article at GigaOM, along my own favorite Readware. So, in summary, Alex’s comparison is not [...]

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:37:04 +0000

Dan, your point about Wikipedia search being more typically navigational than exploratory raises a great point: Wikipedia is certainly designed to map popular questions to answer pages, which is why Powerset’s choosing it as a domain is so underwhelming.

That said, I’d love to see exploratory search on the Wikipedia corpus. We implemented a quick and dirty prototype at Endeca, and it was good enough to encourage me to build out the real thing. Unfortunately it’s not exactly aligned with Endeca’s business model of selling to enterprises, and Jimbo has his own ideas about building a search engine for Wikipedia.

Full disclosure, I’m a big advocate of exploratory search: http://thenoisychannel.blogspot.com/search/label/exploratory%20search

By: Science in the open » The trouble with institutional repositories

Science in the open » The trouble with institutional repositories — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:02:50 +0000

[...] Powerset vs. Cognition: A Semantic Search Shoot-out [via Zemanta] [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:33:50 +0000

I'd like to know what value Powerset seeks to create by focusing on Wikipedia as a vertical. If you use the site:wikipedia.org command with Google, it does a pretty good job. Search on "site:wikipedia.org NFL team won superbowl" and Google's number one result is "List of Superbowl Champions." Besides, the use case of searching wikipedia is generally a navigational search rather than an exploratory one. So I don't see a broken experience waiting to be fixed.

Geoffrey Moore wrote that for a new entrant to break into a market, their solution has to be 10X better than the previous one. Since wikipedia has a pretty good experience, Powerset looks to be going after a very hard target.

Semantic search has tremendous power for vertical where search on Google is broken. (vacations, jobs, real estate, even cars.) These are searches where you may not know how to describe what you want. "Cool 60's convertable" or "fun warm weather vacation" are queries that a person would get, but Google would choke on.

By: tb

tb — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:03:57 +0000

p-air: Cognition is going after semantic ad targeting and other applications. From their site:

http://www.cognition.com/info/licensing.html

CognitionADMATCHER(TM) – The Cognition Ad Matcher interprets the meaning of queries, documents, ad phrases and ad copy. Using meaning as the medium, this ad placement technology maximizes the number of ad phrases matched, and minimizes the number of poor matches to ad phrases.

By: » Blog Archive » Cognition on GigaOm

» Blog Archive » Cognition on GigaOm — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:07:50 +0000

[...] http://gigaom.com/2008/06/07/powerset-vs-cognition-a-semantic-search-shoot-out/ [...]

By: Between the Lines mobile edition

Between the Lines mobile edition — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:10:35 +0000

[...] GigaOm: Powerset vs. Cognition: A Semantic Search Shoot-out [...]

By: p-air

p-air — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 05:29:10 +0000

What about taking a different perspectives on these companies and Google as a whole. Instead of looking at Google as a search technology to be beat, perhaps it's more accurate to say that Google's business is more closely tied to advertisers buying keywords for their ads to appear relevantly on publishers' sites (inc. Google's search site). While most of Google's revenue comes fm AdWords on its site, affiliate don't do nearly as well. One reason for this is the poor relevance that AdSense really gets you when keywords are the basis for such. Now, what if one could apply Powerset or Cognition to the problem of determining what an article was about? Then, how about setting up some heuristics for determining how the "aboutness" of an article s/b related to the "aboutness" of an ad?

If these companies focused less on the public facing Web search objective and more on the relevance issue for advertisers and publishers, I believe they would indeed be applying the Innovators Solution paradigm to attacking Google where it counts, in it's advertising biz. Still, it will be tough to get to the critical mass of advertisers and sites that Google has attained, but I believe they're more exposed there than in the search service.

By: Dominykas

Dominykas — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:19:44 +0000

Well. I just had to try it myself :)

Search 1. "Which team was third in the European basketball championship 2007?" Search 2. "eurobasket 2007 bronze"

For Google site:wikipedia.org added.

Search 1. Cognition - basically nothing. Powerset - keyword search, rather than semantic search (not much different than standard wikipedia search, btw!). Google - 3rd result for "Eurobasket 2007" page, 6th result is the answer.

Search 2. Cognition - 2 results, but #1 is the coach name. Powerset - gives something more interesting, with lots of Lithuanian basketball players and includes women's result as well. Google #1 result pretty much says it all... Wikipedia standard does not even have a clue what I mean :)

Conclusion. Google is by far number one and looks unbeatable. Powerset is interesting, but I have a slight suspicion they're cheating a bit. If they're not - they need to improve a little, but they have a chance. Cognition is useless.

This is just one search string, of course...

By: Liz

Liz — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:25:08 +0000

This was interesting…please keep up your coverage of the “semantic web”. I have my doubts but I’m curious to see what tools are being developed.

By: The Semantic Chimera : Beyond Search

The Semantic Chimera : Beyond Search — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:17:46 +0000

[...] GigaOM has a very good essay about semantic search. What I liked was the inclusion of screen shots of results of natural language queries–that is, queries without Boolean operators. Two systems indexing Wikipedia are available in semantic garb: Cognition here and Powerset here. (Note: there is another advanced text processing company called Cognition Technologies whose url is http://www.cognitiontech.com. Don’t confuse these two firms’ technologies.) GigaOM does a good job of making posts findable, but I recommend navigating to the Web log immediately. [...]