http://venturebeat.com/2006/10/02/bold-start-up-powerset-about-to-raise-10m-to-take-on-google/

Powerset is a startup that is raising some eyebrows in Silicon Valley. It’s led by a Barney Pell, a former NASA and SRI engineer, who recently served as an entrepreneur in residence at Silicon Valley VC Mayfield and left to form Powerset. Some of the “we’re better than Google” language is just good PR, but this raises the interesting question of where search is going. Natural language search has been hyped as a more intelligent mode of search, more similar to asking HAL from Space Odyssey 2000. For all the raves people give Google for their search engine and page rank, it still rather clunky in that results often take several iterations before users get to the information they need. Natural language search makes it easy for non-power users to get to information faster because the engine understands descriptions of what users are seeking.

But people are wondering if search is already “good enough” and that Google/yahoo already fills the needs of the average user. Also Google’s stickiness is not just from its search engine, not the least because of the recognizable interface, simple main page, and robust ad-engine. AskJeeves already offers natural language search and yet it is a distant fourth behind Googs, Yahoo, and MSN. Powerset has a ways to go, but we won’t see just how good it is until they launch. This is interesting though because there is substantial interested from other VC’s such as Foundation. Search is still not entirely mature despite the strong businesses and business models that evolved from search portals.

Mayfield has a pretty substantial history and portfolio of enterprise orientated companies too including Legato, MIPS, Webmethods, Broadvision, and 3com. Since he left Mayfield, I wonder if that has any bearing on the direction Powerset may take, i.e. Enterprise natural language search?

¶ 2:23:00 PM