Powerset, a search engine, which was once touted as a “Google Killer”, and was sold to Microsoft for $100 million a couple months ago, is now being integrated into Microsoft’s Live Search results (at least to a limited extent).
Not many users will actually see these results yet as the Powerset Blog notes. They are simply running some tests. After some testing projects, they have big plans to use Powerset’s technology and Live search’s combined to feed each other, presumably to achieve the most relevant search results possible.
Test 1 – Expand the number of queries for which Live Search shows Answers.
Test 2 – Use Powerset’s semantic technology to generate improved captions for Wikipedia articles.
Test 3 – Use Powerset’s Factz extraction to generate a list of related searches for a set of queries.
Unfortunately, I am not one of the few “lucky” ones to be able to see the tests, but the Powerset Blog provides some screenshots of results. For a demonstration of what Powerset does, check out this video:
Powerset Demo Video from officialpowerset on Vimeo.
Will Microsoft make up some of that search market share with Powerset? Maybe, but I don’t expect them to make a huge dent in Google’s. Like Jason said before, it’s Google’s brand that it hasn’t been able to overcome, and that brand is stronger than ever. Google Killer? I doubt it.
