Archive for July, 2007

Our users have been asking for a hakia Toolbar and we decided to build one. You know, a Toolbar that is always there for you, sitting quietly on your browser for you to easily conduct a search- just like what Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and others offer. Of course, one thing led to the other and we found ourselves offering you: a hakia ScoopBar!

What is the hakia ScoopBar? You can watch the demo here or read on. hakia ScoopBar is a new search tool and to the naked eye it just looks like a toolbar. But when you perform a search with the hakia ScoopBar, and click on the results, you will discover three new Web features not found in any other toolbar in use today:

o You will be pointed to the highlighted answer text- not keywords- inside the document, to save time
o You will be taken to the highlighted answer text with automatic scroll down, to eliminate “double searching” (Web search + inside the search result search)
o You will have the option to then “Scoop ‘n Save” your search result into files you create on your harddrive(under various project names) so that you can never lose your references

Download it HERE& kick the tires of the hakia ScoopBar. Tell us how we do!

A huge thanks & congrats goes to our lead developer, Gokalp Gurbuzer (in the picture with the scoop), who worked very hard on the ScoopBar. Of course, the bigger part of his task starts now, making your suggestions for the hakia ScoopBar Version 2.0. happen. Keep them coming!

hakia’s Search for Better Search Campaign hits the news waves.

Click on the image to watch the clip.

This one is especially for our webmaster readers. I am very glad to announce that our highly anticipated search box is ready to go at hakia.com. Now you can port hakia semantic Web search functionality to your site. And here are some bonuses:

• Let your visitors experience semantic search which is more effective in longer, complex, and unpopular queries (wondering more, see below)
• No ads
• No branding on the search box
• You can use it along with your existing search boxes.

For instructions, check out this page.

We are aware of the possible difficulties of implementing these search boxes. So again, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions; my email is emre@hakia.com – I’m here to help you and I am open to your friendly chats.

As I always say, don’t stop, jump in and be the part of a big thing. Please let us know about your implementations.

P.S – psst, keep this secret. To see the hakia difference demos and to take the hakia challenge, go to http://labs.hakia.com/hakia-lab.html Drop me an email to get the log-in password.

Our “Search for Better Search Conversation” results were pretty upsetting and reported bad news to us all in the search industry. 62% of searchers don’t trust their search engines and have asked the search engines to improve their privacy practices. The good news is we are all listening and the Web searcher is reigning more control every day:

- hakia.com does not place cookies on the user’s computer without explicit permission. You could search cookie free at hakia search engine on the very first day we became online, you can do so today. We had made that policy decision a while ago.

- Google recently announced its cookies will expire in two years and it will anonymize search log data after 24 months.

- Ask.com announced yesterday that it will launch “Ask Eraser” in the near future, a feature to allow the user to erase his/her search history. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land has a long post about Ask.com’s plans and the implementation challenges ahead.

Well, Web searchers, kudos to you! We are tuning in to the sound of your privacy requests.

I just saw the Tony Award winning musical, “The Jersey Boys.” The most poignant part of the musical was the fact that lead singer Frankie Valli of The Four Seasons, and songwriter Bob Gaudio have a 50-50 business deal on a simple handshake more than forty years ago. It is a business agreement that still stands today.

So, trust is critical for lifetime deals. Oddly enough, the search industry will probably be here for your lifetime. Yet, we just conducted a survey of readers of the top blogs sites to find that 62% do not trust their search engines with their information. (see also what top bloggers are saying about trust and read all the results at http://searchforbettersearch.hakia.com/

Further, 30% of these search engine users say that a search engine should never store user information.

Our belief according to our CEO, Dr. Riza C. Berkan is that, “It is not the data or cookies…it is the intent in handling them. The problem is purely in communications. Search engines must openly declare what they are doing with the data and all tracking devices, almost like a confession. Alternatively, they can ask users’ permission when the data is being captured and the privacy line could be seemingly crossed. Once such clarity is exercised, then it is a fair environment.” Please read about our privacy policy and our earlier blog entries.

The point is, like Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio, your relationship with your search engine should be out in the open.

At hakia.com, we will always be open about the use of your information. It is a lifetime deal and something we can shake on.

I have just walked into the office to start my second week here at hakia.com, so I have to put all my “I’m new here” excuses behind me. The first week was everything you would expect: learned my way around the office; met the team; sat in on product briefings; and the list goes on from there.

Fortunately, the office is easy to navigate, the people are great, and, best yet, the products are rock solid.

I come to hakia.com with experience at two other major search sites, and I am comfortable saying that I have worked with great people and together we all produced results that we should have been proud of; however, there’s no argument from me if someone says that neither of these search portals had a real influence in the market. At hakia.com, our current size may keep us off the public’s radar, but we know that our technology and approach to search is making industry insiders take notice, and that is a good place for us to be right now.

If you are a regular reader of the hakia blog, stay with us and enjoy the ride. If you stumbled onto this blog for the curiosity of it, bookmark us now so you can be one of those who can say “I remember when…hakia.com was just getting started.”

Almost everyone has a cell phone nowadays, AND an iPod, but if you are anything like me you are starting to run out of pockets. The latest electronic device that everyone is searching for is the iPhone. Believe it or not, not only does one of us in the office have one and but he just so happens to be the wisest and funniest member of our team, the OntoSem guru, Professor Victor Raskin! Yes, that is the cross section of hakia and iphone for now.

Q: “So Professor, How do you like the new iPhone?”

A: The New York Sun printed a letter on Tuesday, I think, that Steve Jobs, an imperialist lackey, was hawking another unnecessary and overpriced gadget to further enslave the proletariat. I think the letter is phony: I tried to enslave some proletariat with mine, but I could not find the button for it.

If you are searching for an iphone or something for your iphone, you should check out the hakia iphone Gallery. When you do one simple hakia search for the iPhone, you can access a wealth of meaning-based search results. hakia.com knows that the iPhone is a gadget and then anticipates the kind of information you would need. Take a look at the iphone gallery categories below:

Headlines
Profile on iPhone
Ratings and Reviews
Accessories
Comparisons and Deals
Photographs and Pictures
News and Interviews
Blogs and Fan Sites

and more. Check it out and let us know what you think!

I am a fan of Seth Godin. His books always tickle the mind and I just read the latest one,“Dip,”which triggered some thoughts about search and hakia.com. Here I go!

For starters, let me tell you about the “Dip.” For those of you who have not read the book, it is about quitting. I will attempt to summarize the gist of Seth’s message here and highly encourage you to buy the book for the full flavor:

The old saying, “Quitters never win and winners never quit,” is not true. Winners quit all the time and quit often. The Dip is the place where people quit. If you or I can determine that plowing through the Dip is worthy of our time, effort, and talents and if we can work through it, then we have a chance to do something remarkable and differentiate ourselves or our products.

Seth encourages us to try out different things to seek the Dips, and then work through them if it is worth it. Only then do we stand a chance to become the “best” in what we do. What do I mean with “worth?” According to Seth’s Dip landscape, not every Dip is created equal and the secret to success is in being honest and embracing what your Dip is about: You may be in a good Dip-a temporary setback that will get better if you keep plowing though. But you may be in a bad Dip, a Cul-de-Sac or a dead-end that will not get better, no matter how hard you try. In this case, quitting immediately and seeking new Dips is the best action.

I think the state of conventional Web search is in a good Dip and the industry players- old and new- will work through it by implementing capabilities to understand Web text and users’ search queries to improve search relevancy. Companies like hakia.com are already working through the search Dip and its challenges and stand a chance of achieving something remarkable. On this path, we made the biggest leap forward by inventing a new middleware, the QDEX system replacing the indexing architecture, to be able to deploy natural language processing. We continue to put the other building blocks in place every day.

When I saw Seth’s Dip motto, “Beat Mediocrity!” I had a smile on my face. Riza tends to repeat himself with the following sentence: “Mediocrity is a Disease!” Great minds think alike. Our company value is “Excellence Only.” Does it mean we do an excellent job all the time, no. But we are really trying.

Last, but not least, I will share with you Seth’s list of qualities for quitters:

1.You run out of time
2.You run out of money
3.You don’t take your objective seriously enough
4.You get scared and quit
5.You’re a switcher
6.You’ve been trained to be average.
7.You don’t have the talent.

Looking through the list and comparing it with the fabric of hakia.com, I had an even bigger smile on my face. We have a team of non-quitters and have picked the right Dip to work through on the way to the remarkable. Watch this space to share the excitement with us!