LiveSide - News blog : Powerset

Live Search PR push in anticipation of “Kumo”

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:22:07 GMT

We reported last week on a countdown clock that a Neowin member spotted while at Microsoft, and yesterday Live Search Tech Evangelist Nathan Buggia tweeted that the internal Kumo trial will soon come to an end:

In preparation for what we think will be the launch of “Kumo” (and still nothing final about the name), Live Search is beginning to roll out the PR. A few days ago Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post tweeted about an upcoming call with Yusuf Mehdi:

Last night, Microsoft hosted an event at Powerset in San Francisco to talk to journalists about Live Search. Louis Gray was there, and reported “a conveyed perception that traditional reviews of search engines are flawed in their simplicity, in their context, and are not in depth enough to gain a clear knowledge of what's complex subject matter”. As outlined in Powerset Senior Program Manager Mark Johnson’s blog post “How Not to Rate a Search Engine”, the message was that trying a search engine for 3 results were not enough, that users should try Live Search for a week. Even with that, can Microsoft gain ground on Google? Of course that was a topic of conversation at the meetup:

At the quick meetup, questions around Microsoft's potential to dethrone Google were plentiful. We talked about how the once-mighty Alta Vista had once had a significant lead, and even after Google's debut, it held a corner in image search and language translation, before those too were eroded. Could Microsoft find a position that Google just doesn't do well? Could Microsoft start to be good enough such that if people tried to use Live Search for a full week, that Google would seem 'less good'? I even overheard a comment at the event that said in user groups, those surveyed preferred results that displayed a Google logo, even if the results shown were from Live Search.

And tonite, Live Search is hosting an event they’re calling the “Jane & Robot Meetup”:

Are you going to be in the Bay area tomorrow? Do you have a vested interest in search marketing? Know any web developers? Well then, make sure drop in to the Microsoft technology center in Mountain View, CA for a hearty discussion of search marketing hosted Microsoft, with guest speakers: Vanessa Fox, famed creator of Google’s Webmaster Tools, and Sean Suchter, previous VP of Yahoo.

We expect to be hearing quite a bit more about Live Search in the coming days and weeks (even perhaps news on a Yahoo! deal), and even though we’re not in the valley we’ll be at SMX Advanced here in Seattle to keep you posted.

Live Search in the labs: “Viveri” and “Ubiquity”

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:30:47 GMT

While Live Search hasn’t made much headway in the past year and hasn’t made a deal with Yahoo! to acquire their business, Microsoft seems to be more committed than ever to continue the uphill battle to make Live Search relevant. Today, a couple of interesting tidbits show that Microsoft hasn’t given up the fight.

At TechFest, a science fair put on by Microsoft Research to show off the latest research projects, Microsoft announced Viveri. You might remember that LiveSide commenters spotted the Viveri name last October, in our story about URank. This summer Viveri will launch as a test site, separate from Live Search, to test new concepts and get public feedback without going through the formal process of adding them to Live Search. In addition, researchers at TechFest showed off GeoLive 2.0, Opinion Search, Renlifang, and Color-Structured Image Search. You can read more about them on the Live Search blog.

And in some other search news, the folks at Powerset have written a couple of Ubiquity commands for Powerset and Live Search. Ubiquity, “an experiment into connecting the Web with language”, comes from Mozilla Labs. Powerset, purchased last year by Microsoft, shares a lot in common with Ubiquity, according to the Powerset blog: “the goal of the project is to reinvent the user interface through natural language”. The Powerset blog posted a couple of videos that give us a quick glimpse of how Ubiquity, using the Powerset and Live Search commands, works. Check them out on the blog.

Microsoft plans to use Powerset to tailor search

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:09:00 GMT

Microsoft plans to use the tools it acquired in Powerset to “gain an edge against Google” according to a report coming out of the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose on Tuesday. Senior Vice President Satya Nadella believe that gaining, and then using, a better understanding of user intent will help Microsoft to stop spinning its wheels in search market share. According to Nadella:

"I believe this notion of understanding user intent--being able to analyze (search queries) and come up with search patterns and use them to shape the search experience--is one of the most important areas for us"

Microsoft continues to languish behind the search leader, with another round of bad news coming from Neilsen Online, showing Google continuing to gain, and Microsoft continuing to slip in US search market share.

However the news isn’t all bleak, as Microsoft believes strongly in the potential advantages provided by Powerset. And they’ve got another ally, too: Bill Gates. Scott Prevost, Powerset’s general manager, was quoted as saying that "Bill has definitely not retired for us". Gates, who has stepped down from day to day operations, has said that he planned to continue to work on search.

Nadella also discussed plans to provide more directed experiences in subcategories such as travel, health, images, and video, according to the CNET Webware article by Stephen Shankland. Indeed Live Search seems to provide a better user experience in these areas already, although it has not seemed to help their cause much, yet.

Microsoft acquires Powerset – Mainstream search goes to the next level

Chris — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:28:03 GMT

After much ho-humming around whether Microsoft would or would-not acquire Powerset, the deal is now done and announced over on the Live Search blog. Though the price has not been announced, ReadWriteWeb were running with a rumour a few days back saying it was at the $100m range.

For those who’ve missed all the recent coverage about Powerset, its a natural language search engine, allowing users to phrase their query how they would naturally write. Stop and think for a second about how you use Google or Live Search.

Are you using sentences, or carefully chosen keywords?

There’s a video demo of Powerset, which gives a great introduction to the company’s technology.

Powerset Demo Video from officialpowerset on Vimeo.

So what does this acquisition do for Microsoft’s search ambitions? Well it gives them a leg-up on Google, who were rumoured to be trying to acquire Powerset for themselves, but as we’ve seen for several months now, Microsoft’s technology and relevance is already on-par with Google’s. The key aspect again comes back to marketing and conversion of users, something that no amount of technology acquisitions will solve quickly. Then again, Microsoft looks like its in it for the long-term, and is now starting to get out of 1st gear. Disrupting search indeed.