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Powerset's 2008 Promise: A Wikipedia Seach Engine

Valleywag is reporting a rumor that Yahoo might purchase semantic search startup Powerset. We got our hands on a memo that details Powerset’s 2008 outlook. Our verdict? Yahoo won’t purchase Powerset unless it wants to explore the depths of Wikipedia, instead of the web. Powerset started off 2007 with a fair amount of hype. A […]

Powerset
Valleywag is reporting a rumor that Yahoo might purchase semantic search startup Powerset. We got our hands on a memo that details Powerset's 2008 outlook. Our verdict? Yahoo won't purchase Powerset unless it wants to explore the depths of Wikipedia, instead of the web.

Powerset started off 2007 with a fair amount of hype. A high-profile New York Times piecein January presented the Founders Fund-backed company as a possible "Google-Killer" for its promised semantic search technology. In February, Powerset gathered at a swanky restaurant in San Francisco's Financial District to celebrate the close of their Series A round, a $12.5 million round lead by Foundation Capital and PayPal founder Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. That same month, they announced that they would license technology from Xerox's famed Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Then, things went a bit quiet for a few months. Powerset finally revealed its first product, PowerLabs, at the TechCrunch40 conference in September. By November, Powerset had demoted its CEO and co-founder, Barney Pell, to CTO and another co-founder, Steve Newcomb, left the company altogether.

Yesterday Powerset sent out a memo detailing their proposed future direction of the company. "In 2008, Powerset will begin to launch products to the general public, starting in March with a robust Wikipedia search product based on the Wiki Search Sneak Peek, but with many new and improved features some of which will be based on input from users in
Powerlabs. This product will assist users in getting the most out of
Wikipedia, while helping them become more familiar with the power of our natural language search technology.
"

See below for the full memo:

Greetings Friends of Powerset,

Powerset has big plans for 2008, and we're thrilled to have so many of you working with us to improve our next-generation search engine.

Powerset launched our user community site,
Powerlabs, in September at TechCrunch40. Thanks to the active participation of many of you, the site has undergone vast changes since then, with many new demos, and an array of enhancements. These developments culminated in the pre-launch on December 18 of the first open search box demo within Powerlabs. Wiki Search Sneak Peek is an early, pre-alpha version of our product that allows you to use
Powerset's natural language technology to search Wikipedia with any query you wish. We'll be adding many new features over the coming weeks, and your feedback will play a crucial part in the development process.

In 2008, Powerset will begin to launch products to the general public, starting in March with a robust Wikipedia search product based on the Wiki Search Sneak Peek, but with many new and improved features some of which will be based on input from users in
Powerlabs. This product will assist users in getting the most out of
Wikipedia, while helping them become more familiar with the power of our natural language search technology.

Some distinguishing features you will see in our upcoming Wikipedia Search Product include:

  • Open search box supporting keyword and natural language queries.
  • Result highlighting that shows the semantic match in context.
  • Instant Answers drawn from our full text index and outside resources.
  • Knowledge discovery and navigation from our automatically generated semantic database.
  • Expandable summaries that let you see more of the results and refine your search without leaving the page.

In 2008 we will also begin to scale to other premium web content, giving Powerset users better access to the best content on the web. Throughout this process, our focus will remain on supporting and engaging our active user community in Powerlabs. Thanks again for sticking with us as we work to incorporate your feedback, improve our search results, and launch innovative new products. It's been great having you along for the ride.

Happy New Year from Powerset! Here's to an exciting year ahead!

Scott Prevost
Director of Product

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