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Voting started the day before yesterday on this years Webware 100. I cast my votes early for some of this years greatest Web 2.0 applications. I must say my all time favorite - hakia - is up there with some good competition in the “search and reference” category, but in my mind there is only one front runner in this area. Hakia and the people behind it have been at the top of my list for some time.

I expect hakia to be the ones to come through this year in what I have dubbed “the year of search”, but I know there are others capable of interjecting great innovation in search as well. Hakia, at least to me, seems to be the best backed, most innovative and certainly best scientifically supported startup in this venue however.

Hakia is the most promising semantic search entity out there, no doubt about it. However, the startup has had its misunderstandings both in the press and amongst “would be” users. One of the first articles I read about hakia was by my friend Alex Iskold on Readwriteweb back in December of 2007. A good point to take up here is that even in Alex’s article, one shortcoming of hakia was made apparent. No, it was not the fact that some results did not appear to be “spot on” semantic or even better than Google - but rather that Alex and Richard even asked the questions in the first place.

Arguments For Stealth

Hakia may have made an error in judgment even allowing people to test the engine so soon. But what most people do not know is that the beta or “visible” aspect of hakia is nothing like the engine running behind the scenes. However, any semantic search at the early stages of development will not be able to express a significantly more relevant result than other engines - especially in learning mode as is the case with hakia beta.

People just do not know how to test in the first place and they are too fickle in the second place. Alex asked the engine several good questions in an effort (even though ill advised) to reflect the comparative relevance of the answers. Even according to my friend Dr. Riza Berkan CEO of hakia, the number of queries necessary to do this is beyond the scope of what the normal user would want to undertake.

Irregardless of marketing or presentation strategies, one thing is clear about even the beta version of hakia - it is getting smarter. I expect the relative results from a hakia search are on par with Google or any of the other search engines at this stage - though many would argue this point. The biggest asset in hakia’s arsenal is not the great minds behind the development (though they are extraordinary), but the simple fact that semantic search is so needed and so logical. As Riza states in one of his blog articles when asked what the limitations of current search engines are - he states:

The underlying principles of the current search engines do not include “understanding”, but instead they bank on “approximation” by statistics (i.e., referral statistics or popularity). Therefore, when referral statistics is not available, they fail. This happens when (1) the query is a long-tail query, and (2) the pages are dynamic so that there is no time to collect statistics. The cases 1 and 2 constitute a huge portion of the available information on the Web (increasingly so). Therefore, you are half (if not more) blind to the available information on the Web using the current search engines. “Search fatigue” syndrome accounts for more than 50% of all searches, according to these studies.

We are at a stage in the development of the Web where approximations will no longer suffice. In the same way Web 1.0 was a shadow of what Web 2.0 is, so is conventional sear h compared to semantic search. I know this is a normative stretch to believe that something will work simply because we need it to, but If you think about it so much of our technology is revised in this way. I may be goofy but I think we needed Google when it came along, and now we need something better - it is time.

Vote For What You Want

I have written about hakia and the other search engines probably more than anyone except Charles Knight of AltSearchEngines. So, I would prefer not to go into the technology behind hakia at this stage. Suffice it to say that you should check out what is happening at hakia from time to time and also vote for them at Webware 100. I expect to get behind the scenes soon and into hakia labs - so perhaps more information is forthcoming.

Until then please realize that semantic search can be a reality and especially if we need it and welcome it first. I have been rooting for hakia for over year and I am sure I will not be disappointed. The goal there is not to beat Google for the sake of money or bragging rights, it is to develop something refined that is imminently useful. The test of hakia is still to come and will be demonstrated in it adaptation by users. The bottom line is, we all vote for what we want - so if we want better search we have to want it. I sometimes think we are more in tune with the status quo than better.