Archive for December, 2007

We are ready to embrace the New Year and its challenges. It is exciting to read the 2008 Web predictions, notably at ReadWriteWeb and Mashable. According to Richard MacManus, semantic apps and semantic search are about to take off this year. We agree. 2008 will be the year of the semantic search. At hakia.com, we are not far from collecting the fruits of our labor. You can already see the hakia difference.

hakia’s SemanticRank algorithm, built without the use of statistical algorithms, behavior tracking methods or human interference, already provides more relevant results for longer, complex, “long-tail” queries. Try this query and see the effectiveness of semantic search: What causes pelvic pain during pregnancy?

Longer queries, with 3+ words, or queries for unpopular subjects challenge the popularity driven search engines- almost all current players today. As Melek demonstrates in her AltSearchEngines article, statistical algorithms cannot collect enough votes for long tail queries to provide the searcher relevant answers. What happens then? Sadly half or the searches are abandoned. Couple that with the fact that search is a long-tail business: about 95% of the total traffic comes from the long tail queries.

New and emerging semantic search engines will be equipped to deliver more relevant search results both for popular and long tail queries in 2008. We will also see more innovation in the search space. At hakia.com, we introduced peer-to-peer networking into Web search with our new service Meet Others who asked the same query. We have more innovative services coming to you in 2008 as a result of our development process during the current BETA phase. We also expect to see more innovation both from incumbent search engines and emerging new players.

Are you ready for the New Year and a New Way of Searching? May 2008 bring you better results in your long-tail queries:)

Victor Raskin, who is considered one of the fathers of Ontological Semantics, was recently named the Distinguished Professor of English and Linguistics by the Trustees of Purdue. We would like to say “congratulations”.

Victor is one of the founding scientists at hakia to deploy the world’s first Ontological Semantics (OntoSem) driven search engine to deliver meaning-based search performance in an uncompromised manner. Under his leadership hakia undertook the daunting task of building concept maps, English lexicon, and OntoSem parser, which are currently used to analyze Web pages via the QDEXing process. hakia will soon show these distinguishing features designed by this distinguished scientist. And we know that he will be as excited to see OntoSem making a difference in the real world as his latest achievement in the academic world.

We had a good and productive year with many exciting developments at hakia. For those who are watching us and asking, we decided to reveal the search traffic profile of hakia in 2007 as shown in the graph below. Red line indicates the search traffic that includes commercial terms. The entire search traffic was filtered to exclude automated queries.

Our main focus remains development and analysis as we enter 2008. hakia.com BETA stage operation will end with the deployment of all features and analyzed content in 2008. The market positioning of hakia, another frequently asked question, will be revealed. However, we are patient to do it right and take our time which may be an unusual stand in today’s norms.

We are not at a liberty to reveal the actual traffic numbers (a Google tradition). However, nowadays one can go to places like compete.com and get the estimates of visits to a Web site. We did it for you in comparison with some market players who have been around a while to give you a sense of where things are. Note that services like compete.com are not always accurate due to sampling bias.

We appreciate the followers’ inputs and patience. Semantic search is on its way – an irreversable technological reform – and we promise to deliver it to you in its most honest way.

What differentiates a blog from a traditional newspaper article is not only the interactivity it provides by comments and trackbacks but also its hyperlinks. Hyperlinks allow the author to give more insight and references to sources, lending credibility and transparency to a blog entry.

Wikipedia, for instance, is a great resource about some of the complex terms that you may use in your blog entries. By linking to Wikipedia, you no more worry about bringing your readers up to speed by cluttering your articles with long encyclopedic descriptions. Wikipedia works for you; it is just one click away from those who need it.

We invite you to use hakia.com as a resource in addition to Wikipedia and your other favorites. hakia.com’s semantic capabilities will point you to the relevant answers for the complex questions you pose for discussion. Yes, you can use hakia.com as a tool to help you point to facts for your long tail questions. The table below shows how hakia links can be used to quote sources. For example:

Gonorrhea, as the main cause of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID), may result in female infertility.

Let’s apply the same idea to a real world example. The sentence below is taken from an article of Fred Wilson’s blog: http://avc.blogs.com

The years from 1999 to 2003 are the “ugly years” in my book. The venture industry raised unprecedented amounts in 1999 and 2000 and proceeded to mess up the business.

What do you say? Give it a try! And… Stay tuned for more. We will show you more ways on how to enhance your blog’s interactivity.