4 ms·

I searched for "President of France", and was not impressed. Ironically, google got the answer right! http://www.powerset.com/explore/pset?q=president+of+fran

by johnrob 18y ago

I searched for "President of France", and was not impressed. Ironically, google got the answer right! http://www.powerset.com/explore/pset?q=president+of+france http://www.powerset.com/explore/pset?q=president+of+france http://www.google.com/search?&q=president+of+france http://www.google.com/search?&q=president+of+france

jfarmer 18y ago
Yeah, it looks like Google might be trying to head off Powerset at the pass by providing inline answers to these simple trivia-like questions. Powerset's been doing this for more than a year and Google is already better at it, at least when I compare the results side-by-side.
- unalone 18y ago
  I wonder, though, if Google was planning on that already, or if they instead started working on that when PowerSet started releasing such hype?
  - aston 18y ago
    Google's been working on the OneBox (instant factual answers to everything you could ask) forever. As has MSN/Live search: http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=president+of+france http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=president+of+france When I was at MSN Search 3 summers ago, they were objectively ahead of Google in that area.
    - jfarmer 18y ago
      Interesting. Didn't know that!
    - unalone 18y ago
      MSN's is nice (I'm not a huge fan of Google's, though I like its being integrated throughout search results), but I think Yahoo!'s is the most broad-minded. They really take advantage of their various hundreds of sites to give you relevant stuff. It's one of the times when having many half-baked sites gives you an edge. EDIT: I didn't realize that Google's search result answers came on a OneBox. I just thought their first search result had been dead-on.
xirium 18y ago
http://www.powerset.com/explore/pset?q=who+president+of+france http://www.powerset.com/explore/pset?q=who+president+of+fran... gives the right answer.
- jkent 18y ago
  Yet "who is the president of france?" lists Mitterand, Putin, the various Presidents of Ireland, prior to listing the current correct president of france.
  - jfarmer 18y ago
    Yeah, it seems in this case their NLP technology is causing worse results to appear. Google would just ignore the function words.
  - xirium 18y ago
    "who president france" also gives worse results. It seems to work best when you type: {who, what, when, why} <sequence of words in page> If this is the case then users would require the least training and get the maximum benefit if Powerset had a pull-down menu with {who, what, when, why} before the familiar search box.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
KirinDave 18y ago
Feel free to try again, site restricting to wikipedia. ;)
- boucher 18y ago
  Ok. The results are almost the same, except that Google's results have a much better UI. While Sarkozy was fourth on Google, and third on Powerset, it was both much higher on the Google page thanks to the ridiculously huge Powerset "facz" box, and it was easy to scan because there wasn't so much visual clutter vying for my attention (like yellow highlighting everywhere).
- jfarmer 18y ago
  The results are more-or-less the same, with more bling on the Powerset page. I don't see a single reason to use Powerset over adding "wikipedia" to my query if I want to search Wikipedia only.

by johnrob 18y ago

jfarmer 18y ago

Yeah, it looks like Google might be trying to head off Powerset at the pass by providing inline answers to these simple trivia-like questions. Powerset's been doing this for more than a year and Google is already better at it, at least when I compare the results side-by-side.

unalone 18y ago
I wonder, though, if Google was planning on that already, or if they instead started working on that when PowerSet started releasing such hype?
- aston 18y ago
  Google's been working on the OneBox (instant factual answers to everything you could ask) forever. As has MSN/Live search: http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=president+of+france http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=president+of+france When I was at MSN Search 3 summers ago, they were objectively ahead of Google in that area.
  - jfarmer 18y ago
    Interesting. Didn't know that!
  - unalone 18y ago
    MSN's is nice (I'm not a huge fan of Google's, though I like its being integrated throughout search results), but I think Yahoo!'s is the most broad-minded. They really take advantage of their various hundreds of sites to give you relevant stuff. It's one of the times when having many half-baked sites gives you an edge. EDIT: I didn't realize that Google's search result answers came on a OneBox. I just thought their first search result had been dead-on.

xirium 18y ago

http://www.powerset.com/explore/pset?q=who+president+of+france http://www.powerset.com/explore/pset?q=who+president+of+fran... gives the right answer.

jkent 18y ago
Yet "who is the president of france?" lists Mitterand, Putin, the various Presidents of Ireland, prior to listing the current correct president of france.
- jfarmer 18y ago
  Yeah, it seems in this case their NLP technology is causing worse results to appear. Google would just ignore the function words.
- xirium 18y ago
  "who president france" also gives worse results. It seems to work best when you type: {who, what, when, why} <sequence of words in page> If this is the case then users would require the least training and get the maximum benefit if Powerset had a pull-down menu with {who, what, when, why} before the familiar search box.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

KirinDave 18y ago

Feel free to try again, site restricting to wikipedia. ;)

boucher 18y ago
Ok. The results are almost the same, except that Google's results have a much better UI. While Sarkozy was fourth on Google, and third on Powerset, it was both much higher on the Google page thanks to the ridiculously huge Powerset "facz" box, and it was easy to scan because there wasn't so much visual clutter vying for my attention (like yellow highlighting everywhere).
jfarmer 18y ago
The results are more-or-less the same, with more bling on the Powerset page. I don't see a single reason to use Powerset over adding "wikipedia" to my query if I want to search Wikipedia only.