I did profiled several posts on this alpha search engine, i.e. Powerset on this blog before. If you read Powerset, it is a search engine that based on natural language understanding technology, and has taken on a new, and yet important complexion. Typing a few keywords to Powerset search engine will probably not making you understand what its core technology and how it’s differentiate itself from Google or Baidu. But you definitely aware of its organization skills, and a lot of Ajax effects on its search engine. It’s not that surprise, I read that Powerset’s interface was built by Ruby on Rails, and this programming framework has thus become a ubiquitous tool for Web development.

Although several search engines have enjoyed a significant presence on the Web, there’s still not cater to all the needs of the users. In other words, there are still many opportunities for improvement. Playing around Powerset will introduce users to a new view of what a search engine can present to the users. The launched of Powerset’s first phase product is a clear example of how a search engine can make in order to be a most appropriate tool for interacting with users on all the archive, history news. Put an example, I just input several keywords on football, and especially my beloved football club, Arsenal. The results appeared remind me how great this football club it is, albeit that I deeply sad for the fact that Arsenal did not won any trophy for the past two years. I know they’re not afford to buy a lot of superstars, but without all those big names, I still find several Arsenal success stories on Powerset’s Wikipedia article search results. If Powerset continue to improve its natural language search technology, historical news might be the mainstay of most users’ retention strategy.

This is my first thought of Powerset. Frankly, I need a second look on it. As Powerset still positioning their search strategies and framework, I’m looking forward to use it as a search engine for historical news.

If you want to know more about Powerset, there’s a video I’ve embedded in the below. Also read the key man behind this search engine, Barney Pell’s words on it.

About two weeks ago, I ran a very short post that talked about the introduction of PowerLabs, this is a follow-up post, linking over to a video clip found on YouTube. A video clip conducted by the product manager of PowerSet for PowerLabs, and the good news is PowerLabs going to launch on this September.

Below is the embedded video from YouTube.

A new interface of Powerset, maybe it’s time for them to reveal their natural language search engine. I always in doubt of whether Powerset will do something better than Google in term of search query, maybe a grasp of the live demo would answer our rising questions about their details behind Powerset’s technology.

Within PowerLabs, we are going to be offered a number of really cool widgets, games, prototypes, UI designs and future concepts and ultimately an invite into a first look at our products(s) - hint the (s) is on purpose, the founder and COO of Powerset said. Will Powerset simply overpromise in the press and likely to be under delivered when it officially launch in the market, we will know the answer soon.

Long ago, the late Peter Drucker has wrote that any business enterprise has only two basic functions: marketing and innovation. All else, he implied, was detail. All companies nowadays know the importance of the role of marketing as well as consistently in improving technological innovation. Powerset, a stealth search engine in Silicon Valley that caught the eyes of the industry pundits recently, has marketing their Powerset branding quite well in the market. Some even believed it is getting its chances in rivaling Google, the leading search engine in the market right now. They have secured $12.5 million in a round A financing from venture capitalists, and now they also announced they have added world-renowned natural language expert Ronald M. Kaplan to the executive team. It seems that Powerset is on their way to driving innovation in the natural search industry. My sense is that the central role of Ronald M. Kaplan is to lead the company’s challenges to Google.

Ronald M. Kaplan’s academic background is impressive. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Harvard University in 1975. He is also a Consulting Professor in the Linguistics Department at Stanford University and a Principal of Stanford’s Center for the Study of Language and Information.