The (Big) Problem For Hakia, Powerset, Mahalo, and Other Google-Killers

The "highlighter" feature that search-engine Hakia announced yesterday wasn't worth a press release, but it did get me to try the company's "semantic search" service, which is actually pretty cool.  As instructed, I asked Hakia three English-language questions:

Why did the stock market crash?
Where do I get good bagels in Brooklyn?
Who invented the Internet?

As promised, I got intelligent results for all (even the last one, which was a trick question).  For example, Hakia understood that, when I asked "why," I would be interested in results with the words "reason for"--and produced some relevant ones.  If I'm ever in the mood to ask an English language question--and I remember that Hakia exists while reaching for the keys--I might use the engine again.

But therein lies the problem--indeed, the problem for Hakia, Mahalo, Powerset, and the dozens of other companies that are pursuing next-generation search.  Contrary to the premise upon which most of these companies are based, I don't agree that current search sucks.  On the contrary, I almost always find satisfactory results immediately, conveniently, and with minimal frustration.  I also don't find myself wanting to ask the Internet English language questions all that often: It's usually easier to just type keywords.  The results (and display) could always be improved, of course, and maybe I'm always missing out on fantastic sites that have just the info I'm looking for, but ignorance is bliss.

On the questions I asked, Hakia certainly delivered nice results. But I'm used to using Google and Yahoo, and Google and Yahoo usually get the job done, and I almost never wonder whether I'm getting "the best possible results."  So unless Hakia, et al, focus on tight, defensible verticals--or sell their technology to Google/Yahoo/Microsoft--I don't think their future is promising. 

Don't believe me?  Check out Hakia's modest traffic over the past year. Or just ask the guys at IAC's Ask, who, despite being widely viewed as having the "best search on the web", despite massive advertising, and despite the brilliant Barry Diller, haven't budged off of 2% market share.

Comments

[pwb]

I cannot stand natural language search myself but I've tried to keep an open mind that perhaps others like it.

[You Mon Tsang]

Many ships have been wrecked by the siren call of natural language processing. It sounds so good, feels so right, but never seems to be better than the simpler alternatives.

[Christian]

Henry, couldn't agree more with your assessment. Over the last 2 weeks I was pitched 2 new search engines as well - i didn't even try them out because to me search in the google way is simply not broken. I'm used to the way it works, it produces great results and it's already in my browser. So unless Google's result quality deteriorates badly - no need for yet another new search engine.

[ProfitTheme]

Just what we need, another search engine LOL.

[Still Inside]

Natural language processing has always failed (recall that Ask got its start with NLP and subsequently the Jeeves guy went the way of rodney allen rippy).

The problem is pretty simple: most people can figure out that typing "can you tell me what the weather in like in Las Vegas right now?" and "vegas weather" are the same thing to a search engine, but the latter is a lot less typing.

Wiki* does not seem to have anything we haven't seen many times already and neither do any of the others. It's certainly possible somebody can invent a new paradigm for Search, but it hasn't been done yet. Google's genius was to actually focus on Search when everybody else gave it up for dead. Trying that trick again is like trying to hijack an airplane with a box cutter.

SI

[Still Inside]

Ok, I normally don't double-post, but I had to try out Hakia just for fun. Fun indeed. You can always crush these little engines by looking for something slightly obscure. So I tried the following:

"what stocks went up today?"

Hilarious.

(The question is, do they read this blog and will they "fix" that query and will they still think their idea is going to scale to billions of queries)?

SI

[Samir Shah]

I, for one, find Hakia refreshing.

Henry's tone and tone of some others in the comments sounds too much like fear and/or mockery of new technology. The kind that used to say "Command line works for me fabulously, I do not need GUI". One needs Natural Language Query as much as you needs GUI (away from command line) and some of the questions that Henry asked himself prove the point.