Powerset’s Dilemma: Go For It, Or Sell

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/10/powersets-dilemma-go-for-it-or-sell/

by breily • 18 years ago

12 27 18 years ago

Harj• 18 years ago

i simply can't understand how powerset could sell for anything remotely close to $100 million. the rationale that Google would buy them to keep them away from MS, seems incredibly weak.

anyone care to enlighten me?

kyro• 18 years ago

I'm guessing his assertion is rooted in his belief that Powerset is a remarkable service. In the comments, he says that if Powerset indexed/displayed information as good as they do already with wikipedia/freelance but for the entire web, he'd use it instead of Google. From that, he thinks that Powerset is going to be a huge player in the search industry, ultimately leading a revolution to Google's demise, which is why Google would want to take them in, instead of giving MS that edge.

Has anyone else seen a demo of Powerset? Did you indeed experience the same remarkable 'Aha!' moment as Arrington?

breily• 18 years ago

They have a limited beta (Powerset labs, I think its called). I used it a few times, and really didn't get the feeling that it was anything remarkable - though it could be because I wasn't searching with whole sentences. Thats the reason I don't see something like Powerset ever taking off - people don't want to type an entire sentence when they're looking for something specific, and I'd say thats 99% of my Google searches.

smoody• 18 years ago

what he doesn't address (and perhaps wasn't briefed-on) is the rate at which they can crawl and process pages. i have to imagine that the per-page computational costs are fairly high. if that's true, then it might not be appropriate for anything other than restricted, well-bounded domains (which can still be a huge market, but not a google-sized market imho).

pg2• 18 years ago

Sell.

fleaflicker• 18 years ago

Why?

pg2• 18 years ago

Powerset has many signs of being doomed. Natural language search, based on "commercialized" research, taking a long time to launch, talking a lot before doing it.

idea• 18 years ago

> When I tested the service I had something very similar to the “Aha!” feeling that ran through me the first time I ever used Google. In short, it is an evolutionary, and possibly revolutionary, step forward in search

Google's search engine wasn't revolutionary either. It was only moderately better than AltaVista and others. Most of all the visual design was cleaner. Google's main accomplishment was imo the introduction of AdSense.

dcurtis• 18 years ago

In the beginning, what was revolutionary about Google was the experience, not the search results. A lot of that has to do with visual design. But mostly, in Google's case, I think it has to do with the extreme focus they have on search.

halo• 18 years ago

I think it was a combination of:

* A better search algorithm than the competition

* Lack of paid-for search rankings, which were common-place previous to Google

* Tasteful, lightweight, fast design with a lack of intrusive banner ads

All 3 are largely taken for granted these days.

SirWart• 18 years ago

The one reason I switched to google was because on the search engine I was using the search results and images took a really long time to load on a 56k modem, while google's results page loaded instantaneously.

pierrefar• 18 years ago

Why sell? Why doesn't anyone have enough courage to try something big and take on the big boys? Google did it and why can't Powerset?

Come on, someone please COMPETE!

aswanson2• 18 years ago

Because if you are going directly at Megacorps lunch, they kill you. Google did not build an os or office suite, they built a product in an area where MS was not looking, which is the same play MS ran on IBM. I'm not into business gurus that much but Clayton Christensen codified a lot of how those patterns play out; one of his conclusions was that going directly at an established cash cow of a large company is not a good idea unless you intend to sell.

richcollins• 18 years ago

They would sell because their product has no demonstrable value at this point.

KirinDave3• 18 years ago

Wouldn't that be the worst time to sell? Wouldn't you be able to negotiate a higher price with a product with demonstrable value?

djardine• 18 years ago

This article is a very transparent shill for Powerset. The company is clearly using an influential blogger to say they want to be bought, because it would look desperate if they did so themselves. They must not see any light at the end of the tunnel, because there is none.

dangoldin• 18 years ago

It seems that the only reason they would consider selling is that they are not confident enough in their product. If I felt that I was going to revolutionize search, I wouldn't sell out.

At the same time I am not in this situation so this may just be my idealism talking.

dkasper• 18 years ago

Is it just me, or do they seem to be trying to do what AskJeeves tried to do back in the day?

dbreunig• 18 years ago

The value of Powerset is not consumer facing.

Powerset could make a killing licensing it's search to large businesses who are swimming in data, especially pre-digital data. Applying a natural language program to these archives can associate relevant information and tie it to other piles of data. There's real (non ad-supported!) growth potential for Powerset as a B2B.

adamsmith• 18 years ago

Founders Fund is known for letting founders cash out, so that could be another option.

Powerset has many employees. If the deal goes through it'd be interesting to see if MSFT gets them all to move.

Either way I wish those guys luck. Their founder Barney Pell seems like a cool guy.

Powerset’s Dilemma: Go For It, Or Sell

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