The conference brochure pre-amble introduced the notion of Semantic Search by asking "How will it change our lives? As search dominates our Internet use, this session will explore the new generation of semantic technologies that look to radically change the future."
Scott Prevost, General Manager & Director of Product at Powerset, the semantic search engine Microsoft acquired recently, was on hand to outline its methodology and vision for search.
Essentially Semantic Search is all about extracting meaning from a web page.
Current search technologies as we know them are keyword-driven. That is to say that very often the results we get back when we perform a search are aligned with words extracted from the page rather than the meaning of the sentences or the sentiment behind them. This limitation gives us the "10 blue links" we see on search engine results pages today where we as users have to delve deeper and choose which page is most relevant to what we've been looking for, very often coming back to refine our search before we get where we want to go.
Semantic Search seeks to provide more relevant results, not just by understanding what's being written on the web page but also understanding what the user means when they use the particular keyword string they do.
Scott summarized the riddle:
- Search is not a solved problem
- Keyword techniques offer a shallow representation of document meaning and user intent
- Better relevance can be achieved through improved models of meaning of documents and meaning
- Better understanding means a richer feature-set
A couple of examples - Van Gogh Paintings & Actors In Batman Dark Knight
The key here is to enhance the relevance and thus the user experience too. If the user finds the results match their query better and they find what they want quicker, it gives rise to the opportunity to present, summarize and aggregate the data in newer and more innovative ways.
The impact on relevance is huge. Scott cited a few examples where the slightest turn of phrase can mean something completely different. For example the difference between "who endorsed Clinton?" versus "who did Clinton endorse?"
With value added to the user experience, relevancy of the results, potential for new and innovative search tools and ways of displaying the data, Semantic Search is an exciting concept which is set to transform the experience we have today.
Other speakers on the panel made some excellent points. Nagaraju Bandaru, Co-founder & CTO of BooRah said that understanding the semantics of the sentence and not just the keywords would enhance the search results and change user behaviour. Mobile he said would become an increasingly more important device in this area.
Amit Kumar, Director Product Management at Yahoo! Search called on the Internet development community to work with the engines to help build a better web by creating applications that benefit and engage more users.
Kevin Ryan, who moderated the panel, asked "How are we going to change the minds of people from caveman speak.......from keywords to semantic talk?"
A very good question!
Users are so used to typing in just a few keywords to find what they want, now we have to re-educate them to use longer queries?
The consensus was as we start seeing more and more relevant results, so the detail people use in their searches will increase in tandem.
It was a fascinating session providing us all with a glimpse of the future of search.