Powerset Available
May 12, 2008
Navigate to Powerset.com and try out the much-publicized Web search system. Using proprietary technology plus third-party components, Powerset is a semantic search system. The system differentiates itself with fact extraction (Factz, in Powerset jargon), direct links to definitions, and a summary / outline view. A big yellow sticky note says that Powerset is searching Wikipedia articles, but my test queries returned useful information in the results list in default mode; for example, the name of Tropes Zoom, a system I had heard about but never seen. A quick Google search allowed me to pinpoint Semantic Knowledge as a company with a technology of this name. I’m not sure Powerset envisioned my use of its system as a front end for Google, but that use jumped out at me. Check it out and let me know if you think it is better than Google, Hakia, or Exalead. These are systems that contain a dollop of semantic sauce. Hopefully the company will provide a larger content index either by spidering the Web or via a metasearch like Vivisimo’s.
Stephen Arnold, May 12, 2008