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In a newly-opened online showcase, search engine specialist Powerset is now previewing a contextual search engine seen by some as a possible threat to Google, Yahoo and other major players through its support for “conversational phrasing.” Although right now, Powerset queries Wikipedia only, rumors are circulating that investment bank Allen & Co. is shopping the emerging natural language search engine to potential buyers that might even include Microsoft, which decided to drop its recent attempt to take over Yahoo. Unlike the search engines of Web sites like Google, Yahoo, and Ask.com, for example, Powerset does not rely on keyword searches.

Instead, users submit their queries as questions that don’t necessarily need to include keywords. Like traditional search engines the results are returned as URL links, often accompanied by pieces of text from the linked pages. With the Powerset search engine, however, the answer is often included directly within the search results. Users can expand the result to see the full text with pertinent sentences highlighted. Indexing the web is expensive, though, and Powerset’s way of doing it requires even more time and computing power dedicated to a web page. That’s why they say they aren’t indexing the entire web yet - the company has raised just $12.5 million. Powerset is has taken a lot of criticism for their goal of trying to redefine how people search the web ( including from us). But their lofty goals are what makes Silicon Valley so great - succeed or fail, Powerset is trying to do something pretty spectacular.

Source: Betanews, Washington Post

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