During the Web 2.0 Summit, I got a chance
to sit down with the team at Ask.com and find out more
about their search engine. This was straight after a Summit session entitled 'Disruption
Opportunity: Beating Google at Their Own Game' - in which Ask CEO Jim Lanzone and Senior
VP of the Online Services Group at Microsoft (and ex-Ask CEO) Steve Berkowitz discussed
with John Battelle how they are competing with Google. R/WW's coverage of that
session is
here.
Whenever I talk to or meet Ask.com people, I always get the feeling they are a little pissed off at the lack of attention they get from blogs. To compensate, out come the stats to prove how big they are. For example, they often make a point of saying that Ask.com is the 5th biggest search engine in the US - behind Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Also, Jim mentioned during the Summit session that Ask is the 7th biggest web property in the US - ahead of the likes of Amazon, NY Times and Apple.
So there's no doubting that Ask.com is a significant player in the Web business - and I agree they don't get their due for that. But what about the actual product - the Ask.com search engine. How does it stack up? I spoke to the team and took the search engine for a test drive to find out...
I've just arrived back from another great trip out to Silicon Valley, for the Web 2.0 Summit last week. Now I have about a million emails to process and things to do. Plus I feel like I'm totally out of whack with the blogosphere right now - amazing how a couple of days travel, together with a 'low on batteries' brain, can disorient one from all the latest news. But I will be back into the flow of things soon.
Thanks Alex Iskold for filling in for me while I was in transit. In case you missed all my posts during the Summit, here's my Wrap-Up of the event (the comments are well worth reading btw). The rest of my posts are here - and thanks Yahoo! for sponsoring R/WW's Summit coverage.
I have a bunch of follow-up posts coming soon, based on my briefings and meetings with people at the Summit and during WidgetsLive.
Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus.
Russia-based Quintura Search Engine has received substantial backing from Mangrove Capital Partners of Luxembourg, an early-stage investor in Skype, ABRT Venture Fund and the partners of OpenView Venture Partners of Boston. This is an interesting deal for several reasons. The first is the Skype connection. Another one is that Quintura is the first Internet Russian company to receive investment from a Western VC. And then, of course, the product itself is very innovative.
Quintura is a visual search engine and it claims to apply the natural way that people think about concepts, to search. One of the most difficult problems that modern search engines are trying to solve is resolving ambiguity. Quintura solves it by presenting the user with a cloud of concepts relevant to the search. For example, when we searched for readwriteweb we got the cloud shown in the picture above. This type of cloud helps to refine results. And when a user clicks on a word, the search results below re-arrange accordingly.
The current version of Quintura supports just generic and image search, but it is likely that more will be coming soon. Users are also able to save and share the results that they find relevant. The results window could use some polishing, but the cloud navigation definitely compensates for any shortcomings. It is clear, as the company claims, that some very sophisticated neuron networks and clustering on the back end are powering this cloud.
Yakov Sadchikov, co-founder and CEO of Quintura, said in the press release:
"We plan [on] using the venture capital to take the Web by storm and reach millions of web users globally when launching the Quintura visual find engines for various user communities."
We think this is very ambitious, given that search is a tough and crowded space. But with a bit of polishing, this one may have a chance of breaking through. Could it be that Mangrove have found another big winner? Only time will tell. For now give Quintura a try and tell us what you think.
Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus.
We have written extensively
about widgets here at Read/WriteWeb because widgets offer a new, byte-size way to expose and consume online content. Widgets are really a win-win for all. Content providers and developers can instantly send their content
to many sites, while bloggers and portals can benefit from syndicated, richer content on their
pages. And as widgets are becoming more and more ubiquitous, end users become
more comfortable with widgets and the provided content.
There is clearly money to be made in the widget space, which is why it has been getting a lot of attention. Richard wrote an overview of the space back in June and I profiled Widgetbox, a market place for widget developers and widget consumers, during DEMOfall. Today we write about a newcomer, a company called ClearSpring, and their innovation in the widget space.
Clearspring, currently in preview, is working on widget technologies for widget developers. The company asked not to share any visuals of their offering until they launch in January, but was open about their plans. They have explained their strategy in terms of three major components:
Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus.
John Markoff's recent article in NY Times has generated an interesting discussion about Web 3.0 being the long-promised Semantic Web. For instance, a short post on Fred Wilson's blog had a lot of lengthy comments attempting to define Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. Some people think that the Semantic Web is about AI, some claim that it is more about semantics, while others say that it is about data annotation. All agree however, that we will all be wonderfully more productive and simply happier when it arrives. Lets take a look at the ingredients, definitions and approaches to the Semantic Web so that we can recognize it when it is finally here.
What is the Semantic Web?
The Wikipedia defines the Semantic Web as a project that intends to create a universal medium for information exchange by putting documents with computer-processable meaning (semantics) on the World Wide Web. The core idea is to create the meta data describing the data, which will enable computers to process the meaning of things. Once computers are equipped with semantics, they will be capable of solving complex semantical optimization problems. For example, as John Markoff describes in his article, a computer will be able to instantly return relevant search results if you tell it to find a vacation on a 3K budget.
In order for computers to be able to solve problems like this one, the information on the web needs to be annotated with descriptions and relationships. Basic examples of semantics consist of categorizing an object and its attributes. For example, books fall into a Books category where each object has attributes such as the author, the number of pages and the publication date. The basic example of a relationship comes from various social networks that we are part of. In one network the relationship might be a friend of, in another a family member and in another works with.
Written by Ebrahim Ezzy and edited by Richard MacManus.
The term groupware refers to applications that facilitate real-time communication, coordination and collaboration amongst groups of people. A number of startups are working hard to develop the nascent groupware market, so in this post we identify some of those startups and provide an overview of where the market is heading.
Groupware has existed (in various forms) since the invention of email. What is new now is the way that groupware is available on every web-enabled PC - through desktop clients such as Groove, Colligo, SocialText (Enterprise Edition) or web-based suites like Joyent, Zimbra, Atlassian, Goowy (Enterprise), and many others.
Current groupware offerings combine personal and group work management. They provide personal project execution and work management tools - including chat systems, meeting schedulers, messaging, conferencing, whiteboards, etc. What all these things have in common is that they facilitate groups working together.
As a recent poll suggested, 70% of you prefer niche social networks connectable via a meta social network, over a giant centralized social network with thousands of members. We're calling the former Social Groupware and the latter Social Networks.
Social groupware products allow the creation of remotely hosted user-groups, special-interest groups - or any other group of like-minded people who share similar passions, interests and goals.
Read/WriteWeb's Web 2.0 Summit coverage sponsored by Yahoo!
It's the end of a hectic week of conference-going for your R/WW correspondent - and so time for a wrap-up of my thoughts on the Web 2.0 Summit. Firstly, my overriding feeling is that this year's conference was a lot different from last year's. It was still a great conference, but in a different way - perhaps reflected in the name change to Summit (a more business-sounding title). Last year there were a lot more developers and designers running around, this year the crowd was overwhelmingly from the media and business worlds. No doubt because of this, I also felt this year's conference lacked in cutting edge new products - and I didn't learn many new insights about Web technology. Having said that, it was still a very enjoyable conference - O'Reilly Media and CMP put on a great show. There was plenty of schmoozing in the hallways and lots of excellent discussions.
As
others have pointed out, the Summit had an 'exclusive' feel to it due to the $3k price
tag and business focus - and this meant a lot of the development and design innovators in
the Web world were not present. The reason why the developer/designer set has been
crowded out of this conference reflects the fact that, over the last year, traditional
media companies (e.g. EMI, Fox Interactive, the TV networks) have entered the Web 2.0 world
in a big way. That is a trend that will only intensify over the coming year, as web
innovation becomes mainstream. Also more traditional big tech companies are doing 'web
2.0' things - e.g. Intel released an enterprise suite at the Summit and companies like
IBM and Symantic were in attendance. These trends are inevitable - and welcome. Because
how else will little web 2.0 startups be ultimately successful, unless they're embraced
by the mass market that big companies (or VC money) can bring them?
I do feel sad though that the developers and designers aren't as much a part of the Web 2.0 Summit (nee Conference) any more - but perhaps this is where the Web 2.0 Expo will come in, the new sister conference being held in April 2007. I certainly hope so, because finding out about new web technologies and trends is what I love the best.
To be purely selfish, undoubtedly my personal highlight was seeing Lou Reed play live (courtesy of AOL). I've read some cynical reports about the 20-minute set he played - that he was surly to the crowd and ironic etc. But isn't that what you always get from a Lou Reed show? I thought his set was great and he's a legend to me - 'nuff said! :-)
But onto actual Web stuff... highlights included:
Overall, I
have to say I enjoyed the conference. Last year in my wrap-up I probably came across as a
little too enthusiastic - even though I called last year's post Cautious Optimism and
Cynical Buzz. This year I wasn't as excited, but the conference was just as busy and
maybe a little more 'mature' in terms of where the industry is headed. So my feeling
coming away from the conference is that it was a great crowd of people there and the web
industry is still alive and thriving. Are we in a bubble? Absolutely, so the cautious
optimism and cynical buzz remains.
Some folks, like Ben Metcalfe, think the conference has lost its edge. Maybe it has, but the Web 2.0 Summit is a different beast now than it was last year - and that's a sign of the times. Or to put it another way, so Lou Reed does corporate gigs now... hey, it's still great music! ;-)
Pics: Dave Forrest, RJ, Dave McClure
Tell us what you think in terms of what you learned from the Summit - either if you were lucky enough to be there, or from the reports filed by me and other blogs/sites. Let us know in the following poll. Plus comments (as always) are welcome.
Read/WriteWeb's Web 2.0 Summit coverage sponsored by Yahoo!
This is the final session at the Web 2.0 Summit this year, a conversation with Yahoo co-founder David Filo and Bradley Horowitz (Yahoo's head of innovation).
John says there's a vibe that Y! has slowed down somewhat in public perception, as opposed to Google. Bradley says that he picks up that from the media. He says Y! has two lines of business - "audience creation" and monetization. He says they haven't done as good a job with the monetization part in recent years. He says Y! is "a social media company" and so tries to knit together / integrate a lot of their services. He says Y! has been growing faster than the internet as a whole.
John asks David if they think a lot about Google. David says yes, as Google started out in one area and now they cover a lot of things. He says 12 years ago it was about competing with AOL, Time Warner, etc. So there has never been a shortage of competitors, but they change over time. He says "the next thing" is just as much a threat - MySpace, YouTube etc. He says that in 5 years time things will be very different again, so may be another startup that gets big.
Read/WriteWeb's Web 2.0 Summit coverage sponsored by Yahoo!
At last year's Web 2.0 Conference, a much discussed panel was one featuring a group of teenagers telling everyone what Web products they use. This year the concept has been take an extra level, by inviting the parents of the teenagers as well. The panel was moderated by Safa Rashtchy.
Most of the panel has Google as their main search engine. One adult panelist uses Ask.com, because she can put questions into the search box. One (adult) panelist says she uses Google out of habit. Another adult panelist uses Yahoo for the maps and other information. One of the teenagers says she uses Google because her school wants her to. Most of the panelists did not know MSN had a search engine.
In regards to online video, one adult panelist said she spends 3-4 hours per week on YouTube. A teenager spends 2-3 hours a day at the library with his friends watching YouTube. One teenager says he uses Google Video. Another says she uses some download software (Shakespeare something??). Safa asks would any of them pay $1 to watch video, e.g. Lost. The majority opinion is no. As for free but with videos, one teenager says she would and in fact it's better than download.
Safa rattles off some names of websites:
Re uploading, most have done this. One adult panelist says pictures.
Safa now asks about companies:
One teenager uses AOL "all day" to talk to his friends. Same for another teenage boy. Three most mentioned by teenagers were AIM, MSN and Yahoo. One says 2-3 hours per day.
One teenager compares MySpace to xmas presents, because he sees something new or a new friend every day - he spends around 3 hours per day. Another says 2-3 hours per day - "making sure my profile's good". One mother signed up to monitor what her child was doing - she found out her 14 year old son was 17 on MySpace.
Do they read paper books? Not much response, but one uses book summaries.
Issues? One says security and spam (she has been a victim of identity theft).
Browser choice: 3 teenagers say Firefox. Two say IE. Of the adults, 3 say IE, one says Opera, one Firefox.
Cellphone use? The adults use them for text and talk; they all seem to use email on a cellphone. One notes she has a sidekick.
Read/WriteWeb's Web 2.0 Summit coverage sponsored by Yahoo!
Marissa Mayer from Google only has 10 minutes to speak at Web 2.0 Summit, so she gives a high level look at Google's use of Ajax in applications. She notes that the key reason they created Gmail in Ajax was speed. This is a theme in Google Maps too. In terms of Google Videos, she says how instant something is and giving instant gratification is key - they used to make users wait 24-48 hours to see their videos after uploading to GVideo.
She asks what does speed mean for future apps? She has a slide that shows browser support - FF2 and IE7. Marissa says we'll see built-in support for client side languages (e.g. javascript). She says also that people will spend more time online, due to increase in broadband etc - and this is good for Google. Another point she makes is that mobile hardware will improve a lot.
In conclusion, she says speed is very important for web 2.0 and the future of the Web.
