Powerset (company)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the mathematical concept, see Power set.
Powerset
Type Privately held
Founded San Francisco, U.S. (2005)
Headquarters San Francisco, California, U.S.
Website www.powerset.com

Powerset is a company based in San Francisco, California that is developing a natural language search engine for the Internet.[1]

The company's stated desire is to build a search engine to compete with Google and Yahoo which would act on a user's questions, as opposed to keywords. For instance, a user who wanted to find out which U.S. state has the highest income tax would enter "Which state has the highest income tax?" at Powerset, as opposed to "state income tax" at Google. The advantage to the user, aside from using questions similar to what one person would ask another verbally, is that a natural language search engine would, depending on its underlying programming, return a result that is more relevant to what the user seeks. As a side result, any context-sensitive advertising shown, similar to Google's AdSense, would be more relevant and attractive to the user, and therefore more valuable to the advertiser.[citation needed] Powerset is not currently selling or displaying any advertising.

Aside from Google and Yahoo, Powerset will compete with other search engine startups Hakia and Lexxe.

Currently, the company is in the process of "building a natural language search engine that reads and understands every sentence on the Web."[2] The company has licensed natural language technology from PARC, the former Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.[3]

On May 11, 2008, the company unveiled a tool for searching Wikipedia using conversational phrases rather than keywords.[4]

Contents

[edit] Powerlabs

In a form of beta testing, Powerset opened an online community called Powerlabs on September 17, 2007. Business Week said, "The company hopes the site will marshal thousands of people to help build and improve its search engine before it goes public next year."[5] Said The New York Times: "[Powerset Labs] goes far beyond the 'alpha' or 'beta' testing involved in most software projects, when users put a new product through rigorous testing to find its flaws. Powerset doesn’t have a product yet, but rather a collection of promising natural language technologies, which are the fruit of years of research at Xerox PARC."[6]

Powerlabs' initial search results are taken from Wikipedia.[7]

[edit] Founders

[edit] Barney Pell

Barney Pell (born March 18, 1968 in Hollywood, California[8] is founder and CTO of Powerset. Pell received his bachelor of science degree in symbolic systems from Stanford University in 1989, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was a National Merit Scholar. Pell received a Ph.D. in computer science from Cambridge University in 1993 where he was a Marshall Scholar.[9] He has worked at NASA, as chief strategist and vice president of business development at StockMaster.com (acquired by Red Herring in March, 2000) and at Whizbang! Labs. Prior to joining Powerset, Pell was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Mayfield Fund, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley.[10]

[edit] Lorenzo Thione

Lorenzo Thione (born in Milan, Italy) is the product architect of Powerset. Prior to joining Powerset, he worked at PARC in natural language processing and related research fields. Thione earned his master's degree in software engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.[10]

[edit] Executives

Ronald Kaplan, former manager of research in Natural Language Theory and Technology at PARC, serves as the company's CSO.[11]

[edit] Investors

Powerset has attracted a wide range of investors, many of whom have considerable experience in the venture capital field.[12] The company received $12.5 million in Series A funding during November of 2007, co-led by the venture capital firms Foundation Capital and The Founders Fund.[13][14]

Among the better known investors:

[edit] References

  1. ^ Helft, Miguel. "In Silicon Valley, the Race Is On to Trump Google", The New York Times, 2007-01-01. 
  2. ^ Powerset Blog: Powerset launches Powerset Labs at TechCrunch40. Retrieved on 2008-03-04.
  3. ^ Helft, Miguel. "In a Search Refinement, a Chance to Rival Google", The New York Times, 2007-02-09. 
  4. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-powerset.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
  5. ^ Hof, Robert. "Powerset: Move Over, Google", Business Week, 2007-09-17. 
  6. ^ Helft, Miguel. "Powerset to Skeptics: Try Us", The New York Times, 2007-09-17. 
  7. ^ Power is turned on, a bit, at Powerset. SFgate.com (San Francisco Chronicle) (2007-09-17).
  8. ^ Barney Pell's Personal History. Retrieved on 2008-02-16.
  9. ^ Barney Pell's Weblog. Retrieved on 2008-02-16.
  10. ^ a b Powerset Founders. Retrieved on 2008-02-16.
  11. ^ Powerset press release, 2007-03-17
  12. ^ Powerset press release, 2006-11-02
  13. ^ Powerset press release, November 2007
  14. ^ PARC press release, 2007

[edit] External links