Will ManagedQ Be Disruptive to Search?
ManagedQ is a new search search that provides a visual interface to Google's results (see our full review on AltSearchEngines here). Since ManagedQ's results come directly from Google, there's no loss in result quality, but the service adds a semantic layer to search, by automatically determining the key Person, Places, and Things for your search.
When you begin a query on ManagedQ, your results appear as tiled screenshots with an information bar on the left. The screenshots, powered by Snap.com have the link to the web site above them and a summary, the same as you would see on Google, beneath them.
If that was all ManagedQ did, it would just be another visual search engine, not offering much more than a similar service like that of RedZee, except that its visual previews are real-time.
However, ManagedQ has a unique feature in its "Executive Summary" bar to the left of the results. This is where you'll find the important ideas in your search grouped by people, places and things. If you're the first person to search a particular keyword, these take a little time to load, but summaries for repeat queries are instantaneous. As you mouse over an idea in the Executive Summary, it finds each occurrence in that term in search results and highlights the full matches in yellow and the partial matches in light yellow.
You can also search for a particular term in your search results, even if it's not listed as one of the terms in the Executive Summary. You simply begin typing in the search box and the Instant Find feature begins matching with every keystroke. In this way, the real-time feedback very much resembles the "Ctrl" + "F" functionality you have your own web browser today.
When you see a result that looks promising, you can click on it and you'll see the page as they are calling a "Managed Result." A Managed Result just renders the important info on the page, mainly text, with all the slow code trimmed out, so exploring results is fast. Of course, you can still visit the web site itself by clicking the web site's title.
The service also supports regular expressions, something that may be too geeky for most consumers, but an interesting and useful add-on for those who know what they're doing.
With ManagedQ, the result is more than that of just a visual search experience. Instead, this fast, flexible service hones in on what you're looking for with ease. With the addition of the People, Places, and Things in the Executive Summary and by making the search results themselves immediately searchable, it's as if it already knew what you were hoping to find.
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It doesn't work. Nothing comes up after you enter a query. I waited and waited. Nothing.
This is essentially a web play on the many desktop plug-ins provided by Attensity and their ilk (The text analytics vendors). I have used the free plugins, and the appletts for years now.
Somehow, they just dont cut it, and in some ways, are just so much fru-fru. It is often easier to just read and click the search results, or try different queries, and band through the results.
But this does point out the real issue: Search Quality has and always will be the next frontier; it's the one area whre real science is evolving, and is THE primary interface to the internet.
Entity extraction will never be a substitute for poor search result sets.
Ask.com already does almost everything that's being posited here as potentially disruptive. I agree it would be disruptive if people actually tried their site, but most people just accept what they already have.
This is the most substantive Natural Language Processing search play I've seen per the executive summaries feature. I think the search application concept is brilliant in terms of leveraging Google (zero switching costs) and I actually think the UI is slick. The alts all make the mistake of rebuilding the engine, which is a fruitless endeavor. There's been no innovation in search for a decade so I imagine it's an uphill battle to get people out of their old ways, but ManagedQ may have the magic combination. Props to the developers, I think this startup has legs.
@Barry
Worked great for me. Loaded in less than a second. They're using lots of AJAX, so if your on a low-end connection or using IE you might experience problems.
I think these guys have something real here. Google is so advanced at this point, no one should expect a new player in the space to compete at their level immediately. The real question is what technologies and approaches look the most promising.
There are basically two types of searches:
1. Browsing/Discovery: Just exploring something new.
2. Targeted Searching: Looking for a specific fact or answer.
For browsing I really like the executive summary. I did a handful of queries and it had highly relevant material 70% of the time. For exploring new topics this is very helpful.
For targeted searching, the instant find was very helpful. I just type the words i think are associated with the answer and i get instant feedback.
All in all I'm very impressed. I downloaded their browser search bar converter and am going to commit to using it for a week and see how i like ManagedQ then.
I'll write another comment here in a week to let you guys know how it went.
I just checked them out and I am somewhat impressed. I like their interface but would like it a little more simplified. Nice use of Web2.0 technics.