The Google Challengers: 2008 Edition
Rich Skrenta — who, aside from creating the first computer virus, is more notable to search as a cofounder of the Open Directory Project and the Topix news search engine — has announced he’s founded a search start-up. A stealth one, as TechCrunch puts it. Don’t we already have several stealth search start-ups? Yep. Here’s a guide to who’s who.
Blekko
What we know so far about Blekko isn’t much, and TechCrunch has the most details in its The Next Google Search Challenger: Blekko post from yesterday. Apparently Rich founded the company in September 2006, along with five other former Topix employees, after he left Topix in June.
Rich told TechCrunch not to likely expect anything public until 2009. I agree with Michael Arrington at TechCrunch that Rich has a track record that makes him well worth watching. The Open Directory was an initial success, though the model didn’t scale well. Some of that was within the founders’ control but had more to do with AOL’s lack of backing. The company should be dragged into the International Court Of Search Crimes and be forced to sell the ODP to someone who will support it properly. Topix has built a reputation and is still standing and succeeding — though I’d say it still has far to go to seriously threaten Google or Yahoo.
Rich adds a bit more in his Why Search? post today:
Having just spent 5 years in the media space, I’ve come away with the idea that editorial differentiation is possible. But the editorial voice of a search engine is in the index…so it has to be algorithmic editorial differentiation.
So far, it doesn’t sound like a social networking play like some of the others. We’ll be watching, Rich. Also see discussion today on Techmeme.
Powerset
Powerset is now a classic example of why you WANT to be a stealth start-up and say little. That’s because when you get too much early press — in part through your own doing — then fail to deliver anything, the hype can swing back at you hard.
The company came to light back in October 2006 via VentureBeat, with the twist being that natural language search would be the way forward. That caused me to write a long rant about the hype of natural language search in reaction. From the top of that:
This is a rant. It’s a rant from over 10 years of watching people trot out natural language search as the “killer” solution to the current state of search, something that’s happening once again with Powerset. That’s a search engine you can’t even use at the moment, but the hype will no doubt continue. To counteract that, my thoughts on and some history about natural language search.
Natural language search makes a compelling pitch for those who really don’t know search or haven’t heard the natural language mantra before. I’ve seen the pitch time and time again. You:
- Pick out an example that shows how “bad” search is on an existing search engine
- Demonstrate how natural language search would work better on your service
- Sit back and collect the press attention
I then went on to detail how natural language search had been hyped and tried over the years. The short story is this: It doesn’t take much natural language analysis to figure out what someone wants when they type in “britney spears nude” or “hotmail.” In addition, by and large I don’t believe enough people will change their basic search habits to enter long sentences when searching any time soon.
Since that time, we’ve pretty much had nothing out of Powerset other than the launch of Powerset Labs in September 2007. That launch hasn’t produced any cool applications that I’ve seen or heard about, nor much buzz. Instead, in November, we got a management shake-up.
For a more formal chronicle of the company’s developments, check out this area at VentureBeat and these search results at TechCrunch.
Finally, while I’m harsh above on Powerset, I actually had a long visit with the company in the middle of last year and was deeply impressed with the effort going on there. I’m still working on a long write-up to explain what’s happening. But in a nutshell, Powerset is trying to literally comprehend or understand each page on the web.
Today’s search engines don’t know what a page is about by reading words. They’re more or less doing pattern matching — finding pages that contain words similar to what you search for (or pages relevant to those words based on linkage). Powerset literally is trying to read and understand what a page is about the way a human reads a page and knows it is on various subjects.
I don’t see that as making it a better search engine that Google. Instead, I think it may eventually give it the ability to create a unique “auto-Wikipedia” style site, assembling knowledge pages on any subject automatically. I also think that there will eventually be some search benefit in comprehension of pages, but exactly how that will play out I suspect is part of being with an existing search engine and a more traditional model. With the array of patents Powerset has lined up, I suspect it will eventually get acquired by Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft rather than rollout its own product. But we’ll see.
Hakia
Like Powerset, Hakia has played the natural language search game. Unlike Powerset, it has a product anyone can use — live since at least the middle of 2006.
Again, I’ve been working on a long write-up on the inner workings of Hakia and have yet to finish it. It’s complicated, and I mainly want to cover what I find to be the real use of their technology — the ability to create custom “gallery” pages and understand those are related to particular searches.
It’s easier to show you what’s impressive. Search for hillary clinton, and you get a nice page showing news, her official site, biography pages, blogs & fan sites, news & interviews, and more. It’s very Mahalo-like, except it doesn’t require human editors like Mahalo and predates Mahalo by a year.
That categorization is something I know the major search engines could do, if they wanted. So far, they don’t. And so far, despite Hakia talking about its rising traffic, it has yet to make a serious mark. Moreover, in October, it made a serious shift to allow social interaction with its results. That’s a sign that the original plan that “natural language will win all” has failed to do so; therefore, another twist is needed.
Social Networking Through Search: Hakia Helps You Meet Others from Vanessa Fox here at Search Engine Land covers the change, plus it gets into the natural language indexing stuff I mentioned earlier that makes Hakia unique, plus has examples of gallery pages.
Mahalo
Credit to Jason Calacanis. He said he wanted to take on Google, then wasted no time getting Mahalo rolled out. OK, he also says he’s not taking on Google — just focusing on the top searches that he thinks would be better with human review. Sure, you aren’t taking on Google, Jason.
To date, Jason reports that Mahalo’s traffic is growing and strong. But to date, I’ve certainly see no webmasters taking about what a traffic driver Mahalo is. It would be early to call it a raging success, but it’s a nice alternative to have. Indeed, later this month I’ll finally finish my Search 4.0 piece that picks up from the conclusion of my Search 3.0: The Blended & Vertical Search Revolution article last November. I’ll show some examples of how the human element at Mahalo can and has kicked some Google and traditional search engine butt — though also how it isn’t the panacea some expect.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
John – thanks for creating this forum. Or rather, thank you Thompson Reuters. Looking forward to seeing what comes of it.
Danny – appreciate your insight into the next generation of search engines but I would hardly call them “Google Challengers.” Regardless of whether or not the folks you mention here can create a better way to search, Google is so much more than a search engine. It’s working feverishly to capture the lion’s share of the global $500 billion advertising market. Anyone who hopes to challenge Google will need to do so in the context of the gloabl ad marketplace. I’ve been ruminating on this topic in my last 3 Search Insider columns and would love to hear your thoughts.
Cheers,
AG
May 8th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
nobody really cares about these algorithm based search engines. Strategic Multichannel Vertical Location Social Networks are the future to online destinations. In my opinion Custom social netwoked user generated results that combine word of mouth marketing with pinpoint standardized vertical location is what consumers want. Custom personalized Location Networks is the future of search.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I blogged about Powerset and Hakia at The Noisy Channel a few weeks ago. My conclusion: rather than advocating for inefficient, unreliable communication mechanisms like natural language, we should be figuring out ways to make communication more efficient.
May 14th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
[...] a reminder, unlike other pundits who consider emerging search engines to be challengers to the Google throne, my focus is on [...]