Web 3.0 is Hard, Slow Work

Virtual Barn-Raising Underway–How to feel as if you’re part of something big

The next generation web, whatever catchphrase will finally be attached to it, is hardly a magical divination. There is currently very tedious work going on, especially in deeper recesses where labels like “semantic” and “natural language” are pitched out onto the field.

Private beta versions of well known natural language projects:

• Powerset
• Textdigger
• True Knowledge

have employed legions of invitation-only volunteers chomping at the bit to count themselves as contributors to search history. And they are eyeball deep in seriously, tedious work–do the demo search queries deliver? are there ample utilities to allow users to pursue a thread? bug after bug after bug is unearthed .

Language is so much more expansive, so attached to meanings that the undertakings seem ultimately like nothing more than pipe dreams intended to keep the curious busily chipping away at search query tasks and random discussions, ad nauseum.

Is it possible to corral linguistics, to ultimately fill the search engine brain space with the whole cornucopia of semantic meaning, so nothing, not even the smallest nuance, is left out?

If everyone pitched in…imagine… perhaps the task could be dispatched with more promptly, eh? Take Wikipedia–currently the single largest source for most of the online, cataloged reference material. And still no end in sight to the wealth of topics yet to be explored or expanded upon.

You can help: why not pitch in to the Wikipedia project? The next best thing to a 60s “happening” we have right now. Did you realize that anyone can add information to Wikipedia? What do you know that the rest of us don’t? Maybe you won’t be accurate with some bit of data? Don’t worry–editors come behind and clean up, other contributors fill in the blanks, so to speak. But I’ll bet everyone has something he or she could contribute. I guarantee you’ll feel as if you’re part of some vast experiment, a cosmic odd job that has much deeper meaning than you realize.

Welcome to the virtual barn-raising, folks. Pick up a hammer and a nail…

True Knowledge: Natural Language Search Engine

Making a natural language search engine for the masses–keep it on the DL.

True Knowledge is an internet search company that has produced as a key product, a new natural language search engine, although they don’t say that. Also missing is “semantic.” I only mention this because it seems to me that True Knowledge and Freebase before it, have put high-level techno terms like these at arm’s length. Maybe it makes them more palatable, maybe it is less intimidating, maybe everyday folks will be a lot more inclined to add such a search engine to their daily search habits if it looks and smells not too unlike another.

Here’s what True Knowledge proposes to do: deliver “direct” and concise answers to natural language queries. For example, TK’s example “is jennifer lopez single?” received a direct “NO” — parsed from the data existing in the SE’s database, plus highlighted results for the natural language query, PLUS ordinary keyword search results in case TK is unable to find the information–“at least you’ll have the results you’d have on any other given day.”

Right now the engine has just launched a private beta version, so it’s anyone’s guess how long it will be before she’s open for business. But if you’d like a preview of the API and the technology behind this newest search engine effort, then take a look at the site. There’s a video introduction that gives about a 7 minute run-down of the features and benefits of True Knowledge.