Powerset: The New Quaero
Sunday, May 06, 2007
As another month goes by, we are treated to yet another juicy tidbit about supposed Google-killer Powerset. Don't get me wrong, I love to see new innovation in the search engine space. Unfortunately, the only transparent thing we have seen from Powerset is vaporware and some in the media continue to eat it up. Until we, the public, have something to try for ourselves, there are lots of other companies more worthy of interest. Ask, Vivisimo, hakia, Snap. Honestly, I am still wondering what happened to Kartoo. Powerset should really fan the flames, because even if they finally release something, it can no longer live up to the hype. There is a point at which perception needs to be backed up by at least a sliver of reality. Remember how big of a disappointment The Next Big Thing (TM) turned out to be? The Segway. Lacking any gyroscopes, I'm sad to say that right now it looks like Powerset is heading down the path of Quaero. Labels: Google, hype, Powerset, Quaero, search
posted by Adam Edwards
2 comments
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2 Comments:
I'm going to politely disagree on this one. Kartoo's concept maps needed more than a magic carpet to make them useful -- but Powerset seems to be following the Joost model. Build buzz...enlist volunteers to test (Powerset is using Amazon's Mechanical Turk)...grow the Beta behind a walled garden and then launch to the public when there's really something useful.
I certainly hope you are right, Margaret, but right now they seem to have a very small garden. If writers want to report on partnerships while Powerset is still in a closed beta, that is one thing. But if others are going to comment on their "predictive model", I think we need a little reality check first since it's not even public yet. Rob Hof was right in saying they're baiting the tiger.
As for Kartoo, I just thought it was an interesting experiment. If the taxonomy behind it worked, visually leading you to what you meant can be just as valid as text links.
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