Think Flat

Powerset’s response:  91, 187.

Now for the control group, I decided to ask Google the same question.  Its response was much less direct.

As someone who uses Google hundreds of times a week to gather information, I know that eventually I will find how many people Infosys employs.  Even so, the capabilities of Powerset-like technology are compelling.  Currently, Powerset only searches Wikipedia and Freebase.  But don’t expect these limitations to last long—on July 1^st, Microsoft announced its intentions to purchase Powerset for $100 million. 

Microsoft’s resources, coupled with its desire to gain a greater share of the search-engine market, should help push semantic technology into the forefront in the coming years.  For those who have followed the evolution of the Web, this is an “about time” moment.  Nearly a decade ago, Tim Berners-Lee essentially dubbed the Semantic Web as the “next big thing”, even going so far as to call it Web 3.0. 

Though many disagree with the “Web 3.0” assertion, the Semantic Web has a huge amount of potential.  While the Internet’s ubiquitousness is impressive, it has yet to reach its potential.  Right now, the web is a gigantic collection of documents and data.  Search engines use keywords to bring this data back to users.  From there, it is up to the user to filter and process the data.  In time, search engines will begin to take over this processing task, semantically filtering data into usable information. 

This ability to transform disparate data into useful information is one of the reasons that corporations around the world are investing billions of dollars into the technology.  For example, Citigroup is examining ways that Semantic technology can help its traders and analysts better respond to fast-moving market conditions.   A 2006 report by Mills Davis, at the consulting firm Project10x, estimates that the world-wide Semantic Web market could approach $50 billion by 2010.

Corporate interest in the technology isn’t a surprise.  Imagine being able to type “who has knowledge of X client’s account”, and getting back a response detailing anyone who has ever worked on that client’s account, how long they have worked on the account, and what their duties were.  A Semantic search engine could gather this information from HR, from Email-databases, and from Knowledge databases.  This ability would be an incredibly powerful tool for any organization.

The Semantic Web is just another example of a growing, technology-enabled, worldwide interconnection.  There are so many brilliant minds around the world, and technology like this provides a new tool which we can use to learn from one another.

If you’d like to learn more about the potential of the Semantic Web, I suggest you check out this great article in Business Week.

Also, check out Powerset’s website.