happykatie :: katie rocks out the interwebs

Hakia search engine finds meaning to rock out to

I hung out with Hakia search engine nerds today at Blogher and was most impressed with their chilled discussion of ontological semantics and love of all that is user search.  The fact that I could have a conversation in passing like that obviously tickled me beyond belief.

In a nutshell, Hakia is a new beta search engine that looks for meaning-based query results.  The kind of algorithms this involves moves far beyond typical search engine indexing and reacts more cognitively.  So yeah, I don't completely get it either but I do know that I like it.

An example they used - say you want to search the word 'kill'.  To an English speaking human this could mean:

• Murder (I'm going to kill that dude)
• Do really well at something (You totally killed that guitar solo)
• Shut off (Can you kill the lights?)
• Veto or cancel (The president killed that bill)

Most search engines would simply take you at your search and bring you results that matched the exact wording of your query.  The beauty behind Hakia is that it can tell what you mean by reading the rest of your search query.  Pretty snazzy huh?

Blingo - Big money, search happy

What do you get when you cross Google-mania and Publisher's Clearing House gigantor check excitement?  Blingo the magic winning search engine machine.

You search as usual and, if you're incredibly lucky and are the first search after random times throughout the day, can win prizes like movie tickets, cars or $10 million.  I am personally in it for the latter.