hakia in Economist Article: Improving Innovation
In the recent Economist.com article, with the subtitle: “Search engines could be the answer” the author tells a story that is a back-to-the-future view of the grass-roots innovation culture – something that has escaped from the Internet sector in the last decade. I mostly agree with this perspective, and have some views to add on.
In the Internet sector, most of the venture capitalists today are essentially non-believers of the central dogma: science turning into a technology, technology turning into a business. They would rather start from the tail end of it: business that has some technology, technology that may have some science behind it. Although this can be “the first-principles” approach for risk management, it is hardly an avenue for real progress.
On the big business side, if you look at the top Internet businesses like Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, and AOL, the level of cutting-edge technology bred from core scientific research is surprisingly low, if none. Just compare it to the automotive industry, for example, you can expect cutting edge technology in the latest models, ranging from on board GPSs to cars with hybrid-fuel engine. The latest model of Google? Hardly anything is different than a decade ago. Like the VCs, the decision makers of the big businesses do not believe in the central dogma either. Simply because they did not emerge from such an experience. They emerged from the dot.com boom.
But this is a very well known phenomenon in emerging industries. Quick money shadows scientific progress for a while, and is always short-lived until the cycle of real progress is repeated. The success of analog cell phones delaying its digital counterpart, cassette players delaying the emergence of CDs, and CDs delaying DVDs. Examples are countless. It is always the same pattern and lasts typically a decade.
The success of statistical search engines has delayed the emergence of semantic search engines in the same manner. But the transition is knocking on the door. Semantic technologies (that are based on real scientific research) will naturally penetrate in the market and provide basic functions like Web search, networking, summarization, categorization, and semantic advertising.
Everything at hakia started from scientific research, followed by the development of a new technology from scratch. At the last phase, we are building the business side of it. Therefore, we represent the central dogma and the return to the cycle of real progress. And if you want to call us the black sheep in the herd, it wouldn’t be inaccurate. That’s until all the sheep turn black.
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:23 am
I found your site on google blog search and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. Just added your RSS feed to my feed reader. Look forward to reading more from you.
- Sue.