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Rewind to the preholidays... I'm looking for a new set of pillows for the bed... the sit-up-in-bed kind... you know what I mean. I go to Google and type in "bed pillows" only to get the first 10 page matches for regular old fluffy down or Tempur-Pedic® pillows. At a glance I can tell that they're not what I'm looking for. So, what's my next step? How do I get past this impressive wall of commerce sites that are all pushing regular old bed pillows (aside from paging through tens of thousands of quickly retrieved results)?
Like a novice forensics specialist I examine the scenario. What actually happened here? What did the user enter in the field? What did the user mean by "bed pillows?" What was the user trying to achieve? What tools (features & datum) were available to help the user accomplish the task?
===== begin scene =====
I guess I should just ask myself (aka the user):
"What did you mean?"
He answers:
"What I meant was that I was looking for new bed pillows to sit up in bed with when we watch TV or read a book... maybe they're called reading pillows... I dunno. I'm just trying to find some stoopid pillows for God's sake."
The user sounds a little frustrated, so I ask another question:
"Why did you type in 'bed pillows'?"
He blurts out:
"Because that's what you're SUPPOSED to do, right?! Enter 'key words'."
please read more...
N.B. This is a half-comic research and analysis narrative, and the longest blog you've read in a while. Get your glasses, a cup of coffee, and about 10 minutes of free time.
the saga continues...
(queue detective music whilst I commence a private monologue)
"Ah-ha. So now we're getting somewhere. How can a search engine derive meaning from "bed pillows"? Laughing to myself, I note on my sketch pad that there's another issue here. This user has been brainwashed... conditioned... he's a victim of GoogleSpeak. Like a poorly written program he repeatedly tries to mix up just the right number of keywords in the proper order to produce the mystical results list that satisfies his longing. Ha! He might just as well slip some more powdered tongue of newt into the bubbling cauldron in order to concoct the proper search potion. There's certainly no such thing as a hole-in-one here, but are there better ways to narrow down search?"
Probably a good idea to ask our victim a few more questions:
"So, what finally happened? I mean, did you ever find the pillows you were looking for?"
He lowers his shaking head, sighs, and begins:
"Well, yes... but it wasn't easy. First I had to scan the entire list AND the sponsored listings AND the sponsored links. Then I looked at the names of the domains to see if any of them were bedding specialists, 'cause I might have a chance by using a different section of their catalog. Then I started clicking... actually, I started right-clicking, so I could open the sites in New Windows and poke around... I didn't want to loose my list, you know... my list."
I try to focus his now long-winded rant:
"And what did you see on these sites?"
He jumps on my words:
"A whole bunch of junky Yahoo!Shopping sites with those stoopid buttons on the left that are impossible to read and poorly organized. It was pure agony. I wish I could just skip those Mom & Pop web stores. But I did find a site or two that were clearly low budget but had some specialization in bedding. Boy, it took some work, but I eventually narrowed my thoughts down to about three different products."
I try to close the case:
"So, you were done, right?"
He snaps back:
"Don't you wish! No way, Jose. Now I had to enter those new terms into my search list and get entirely new results and start all over. But I feel better 'cause my new keywords are more detailed. I wish I had known a bit more right at the start. (sigh & pause) You know what I finally did? I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to look at products and made my purchase there. Can you believe it? All that work... really for nothing."
I can only console the poor fool.
But then I think about that advertisement for the new Ask. I haven't checked out their new interface yet, maybe it really does have something new and interesting to offer.
===== end of scene =====
Ask! Well, the name itself suggests an upward rise at the end of a string of words. I tried to think of the shortest question I could ask... a-ha! "Beer?" (I question that I often ask myself at home... meaning, shall I have a beer? Luckily, the answer is almost always "YES!" 'cause I'm a complete sucker when it comes to Beer Pressure.) But maybe "beer" wasn't such a good idea for finishing this article.
Regaining my focus I decide to enter the same two keywords into Ask: "bed pillows" [enter]. The result is pleasing... very pleasing indeed. Quick entry indexing based on "bed pillows" followed by a lightly designed results list accompanied by a series of facets on the left... possible meaning trails for "bed pillows." Then I literally say out loud: "HEY! This is CLUSTY!" Clusty, the little company that clusters search results by facets. I wonder if Ask asked Clusty for their technology, or whether they just stole the idea. Ah, the interplagarismnet. I get over it. The facets on the left would have certainly helped that poor sucker looking for those bed pillow thingies. I wonder if he wonders whether he can get his lost time back?
[Strike One against Google]
Then I notice another cool piece... there's a little camera in the upper left of each listing, I bring my mouse over there to click and I get an onHover preview of the website. Cool. That would've saved a bunch of time screening out those cookie-cutter storefronts.
[Strike Two against Google]
What other niceties can I find? Well, for one, they've taken a very nice best practice about showing only the root domain of the returned page, which makes things far more readable. Ask and Clusty will show www.linensource.com, whereas Google shows www.linensource.com/default.aspx?page=products&categoryid=11... YIKES!
[Inside Pitch... I think it just nicks the plate, but the Ump calls it a ball... gonna have to pitch 'em harder]
Hang on... what's that little feature in the corner? That little [+] symbol. Allright! I've used this on Healthline in the past and it's superhandy to quickly recall those sites that I'm always visiting but haven't bookmarked.
[A nice slider that's dropping over the plate, Google swings and hits... a foul ball... still two strikes as Google hangs in tough]
Then something dawns on me... something subtle, but important. There're NO SPONSORED LINKS on the right. Wow! They've done it! They pushed back against the terrible trend of global warming (er, I mean advertising noise). I'm impresed... verrry impressed.
[Wicked fastball... Strike Three against Google, but the ball is dropped and Google is running to first]
==========
We pause our game as Google races to base one. I'd like to step back and visit an issue I'll call "keyword conditioning." That's the technocultural malaise that has people typing in two or three words all over the place, fragmenting their thoughts, so that they can be mystically parsed by some machine.
I ponder... if they call themselves Ask, mayhap they can Answer an actual question or two... with all the words and everything. So I type in a bed pillows question:
"Where can I find bed pillows that you put behind your back when you're sitting in bed and reading a book or watching TV?"
Chew on THAT!
Well, Ask's results list practically chokes, but their facets respond quite well... so my next step there along the path of search refinement is on solid footing. Clusty explodes into uselessness... too bad. Google does what Google does... it statistically weighs all the terms... which just so happens to yield a relevant first result but the remainder are pretty irrelevant, so much so that the sixth listing is about Jiu Jitsu... go figure.
==========
Hold onto your seat belts folks... we've just unwittingly driven into the township of natural language search.
A profound premise underlies most theories of language use... that the words we choose to employ, and the order in which we use them, dictate the meaning(s) we intend for others. Language is one of homo sapiens' greatest adaptations... one of its finest arts alongside the plastic arts, music, architecture, religion, theater, etc. Even in its meagre, utilitarian form the simple sentence is laden with meaning. Linguists spend their lives examining the semantic structures in our languages, after all, words are the most common tools we use to communicate meaning and intent.
Meaning is built up from layers of symbolic representation and interrelationships inside each utterance. Meaning is NOT constructed from a statistical weighting of the permutations of individual keywords stripped of stopwords, or even proximate keyword groups that resemble linguistic substructures. Barney Pell, CEO of Powerset, calls keywords an "impoverished language", coming up with the label "keywordese." I agree. That's why I mashed up GoogleSpeak to conjure up a future where our language to interact with technology actually regresses to precivilized noun-grunts. We need a much better search core, not just little search enhancements.
But more interestingly, there are appearing some natural language internet search engines just at the edge of our vision (e.g. PowerSet). They will be able to parse the meaning behind users' questions and provide concrete answers. Of course, they'll have limits and they won't always work, but maybe they'll push back against keyword conditioning and get folks writing (and talking) in sentences again to convey personal meaning.
Since we're always focusing on the competition, here's a little pic of how Yahoo! is following along with facets.
Some ideas to think about and links to follow:
Natural Language Search
PowerSet
PowerSet Blog Entry - What Did Steve Jobs Say about the iPod?
Barney Pell's Weblog - Powerset and Natural Language Search
True Knowledge
Slashdot Article - The Future of Google Search and Natural Language Queries
WordNet
Linguistics & Meaning via Wikipedia
Semantics
Semiotics
Linguistics
Philosophy of Language
Noam Chomsky
Generative Grammar
Universal Grammar
Poverty of the Stimulus
Informational Cascade
Groupthink
Fiction
1984
Newspeak
DoubleThink
George Orwell
Search
Google
Ask
Clusty
Like a novice forensics specialist I examine the scenario. What actually happened here? What did the user enter in the field? What did the user mean by "bed pillows?" What was the user trying to achieve? What tools (features & datum) were available to help the user accomplish the task?
===== begin scene =====
I guess I should just ask myself (aka the user):
"What did you mean?"
He answers:
"What I meant was that I was looking for new bed pillows to sit up in bed with when we watch TV or read a book... maybe they're called reading pillows... I dunno. I'm just trying to find some stoopid pillows for God's sake."
The user sounds a little frustrated, so I ask another question:
"Why did you type in 'bed pillows'?"
He blurts out:
"Because that's what you're SUPPOSED to do, right?! Enter 'key words'."
please read more...
N.B. This is a half-comic research and analysis narrative, and the longest blog you've read in a while. Get your glasses, a cup of coffee, and about 10 minutes of free time.
the saga continues...
(queue detective music whilst I commence a private monologue)
"Ah-ha. So now we're getting somewhere. How can a search engine derive meaning from "bed pillows"? Laughing to myself, I note on my sketch pad that there's another issue here. This user has been brainwashed... conditioned... he's a victim of GoogleSpeak. Like a poorly written program he repeatedly tries to mix up just the right number of keywords in the proper order to produce the mystical results list that satisfies his longing. Ha! He might just as well slip some more powdered tongue of newt into the bubbling cauldron in order to concoct the proper search potion. There's certainly no such thing as a hole-in-one here, but are there better ways to narrow down search?"
Probably a good idea to ask our victim a few more questions:
"So, what finally happened? I mean, did you ever find the pillows you were looking for?"
He lowers his shaking head, sighs, and begins:
"Well, yes... but it wasn't easy. First I had to scan the entire list AND the sponsored listings AND the sponsored links. Then I looked at the names of the domains to see if any of them were bedding specialists, 'cause I might have a chance by using a different section of their catalog. Then I started clicking... actually, I started right-clicking, so I could open the sites in New Windows and poke around... I didn't want to loose my list, you know... my list."
I try to focus his now long-winded rant:
"And what did you see on these sites?"
He jumps on my words:
"A whole bunch of junky Yahoo!Shopping sites with those stoopid buttons on the left that are impossible to read and poorly organized. It was pure agony. I wish I could just skip those Mom & Pop web stores. But I did find a site or two that were clearly low budget but had some specialization in bedding. Boy, it took some work, but I eventually narrowed my thoughts down to about three different products."
I try to close the case:
"So, you were done, right?"
He snaps back:
"Don't you wish! No way, Jose. Now I had to enter those new terms into my search list and get entirely new results and start all over. But I feel better 'cause my new keywords are more detailed. I wish I had known a bit more right at the start. (sigh & pause) You know what I finally did? I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to look at products and made my purchase there. Can you believe it? All that work... really for nothing."
I can only console the poor fool.
But then I think about that advertisement for the new Ask. I haven't checked out their new interface yet, maybe it really does have something new and interesting to offer.
===== end of scene =====
Ask! Well, the name itself suggests an upward rise at the end of a string of words. I tried to think of the shortest question I could ask... a-ha! "Beer?" (I question that I often ask myself at home... meaning, shall I have a beer? Luckily, the answer is almost always "YES!" 'cause I'm a complete sucker when it comes to Beer Pressure.) But maybe "beer" wasn't such a good idea for finishing this article.
Regaining my focus I decide to enter the same two keywords into Ask: "bed pillows" [enter]. The result is pleasing... very pleasing indeed. Quick entry indexing based on "bed pillows" followed by a lightly designed results list accompanied by a series of facets on the left... possible meaning trails for "bed pillows." Then I literally say out loud: "HEY! This is CLUSTY!" Clusty, the little company that clusters search results by facets. I wonder if Ask asked Clusty for their technology, or whether they just stole the idea. Ah, the interplagarismnet. I get over it. The facets on the left would have certainly helped that poor sucker looking for those bed pillow thingies. I wonder if he wonders whether he can get his lost time back?
[Strike One against Google]
Results for "bed pillows" - Clusty
Then I notice another cool piece... there's a little camera in the upper left of each listing, I bring my mouse over there to click and I get an onHover preview of the website. Cool. That would've saved a bunch of time screening out those cookie-cutter storefronts.
[Strike Two against Google]
Some great search refine and filter tools, including facets - Ask
What other niceties can I find? Well, for one, they've taken a very nice best practice about showing only the root domain of the returned page, which makes things far more readable. Ask and Clusty will show www.linensource.com, whereas Google shows www.linensource.com/default.aspx?page=products&categoryid=11... YIKES!
[Inside Pitch... I think it just nicks the plate, but the Ump calls it a ball... gonna have to pitch 'em harder]
Hang on... what's that little feature in the corner? That little [+] symbol. Allright! I've used this on Healthline in the past and it's superhandy to quickly recall those sites that I'm always visiting but haven't bookmarked.
[A nice slider that's dropping over the plate, Google swings and hits... a foul ball... still two strikes as Google hangs in tough]
Then something dawns on me... something subtle, but important. There're NO SPONSORED LINKS on the right. Wow! They've done it! They pushed back against the terrible trend of global warming (er, I mean advertising noise). I'm impresed... verrry impressed.
[Wicked fastball... Strike Three against Google, but the ball is dropped and Google is running to first]
==========
We pause our game as Google races to base one. I'd like to step back and visit an issue I'll call "keyword conditioning." That's the technocultural malaise that has people typing in two or three words all over the place, fragmenting their thoughts, so that they can be mystically parsed by some machine.
I ponder... if they call themselves Ask, mayhap they can Answer an actual question or two... with all the words and everything. So I type in a bed pillows question:
"Where can I find bed pillows that you put behind your back when you're sitting in bed and reading a book or watching TV?"
Chew on THAT!
Well, Ask's results list practically chokes, but their facets respond quite well... so my next step there along the path of search refinement is on solid footing. Clusty explodes into uselessness... too bad. Google does what Google does... it statistically weighs all the terms... which just so happens to yield a relevant first result but the remainder are pretty irrelevant, so much so that the sixth listing is about Jiu Jitsu... go figure.
==========
Hold onto your seat belts folks... we've just unwittingly driven into the township of natural language search.
A profound premise underlies most theories of language use... that the words we choose to employ, and the order in which we use them, dictate the meaning(s) we intend for others. Language is one of homo sapiens' greatest adaptations... one of its finest arts alongside the plastic arts, music, architecture, religion, theater, etc. Even in its meagre, utilitarian form the simple sentence is laden with meaning. Linguists spend their lives examining the semantic structures in our languages, after all, words are the most common tools we use to communicate meaning and intent.
Meaning is built up from layers of symbolic representation and interrelationships inside each utterance. Meaning is NOT constructed from a statistical weighting of the permutations of individual keywords stripped of stopwords, or even proximate keyword groups that resemble linguistic substructures. Barney Pell, CEO of Powerset, calls keywords an "impoverished language", coming up with the label "keywordese." I agree. That's why I mashed up GoogleSpeak to conjure up a future where our language to interact with technology actually regresses to precivilized noun-grunts. We need a much better search core, not just little search enhancements.
- Are there computers and systems out there that understand what I meant in that bed pillows question?
- Could they break down its semantic structure into noun phrases (NP), verb phrases (VP), gerunds, conditionals, etc.?
But more interestingly, there are appearing some natural language internet search engines just at the edge of our vision (e.g. PowerSet). They will be able to parse the meaning behind users' questions and provide concrete answers. Of course, they'll have limits and they won't always work, but maybe they'll push back against keyword conditioning and get folks writing (and talking) in sentences again to convey personal meaning.
- How long will we be limited to stumbling through this dark age of search formulae devoid of language and meaning?
- Why do these search engines purportedly garner 65% of internet page views? Could it be that Google gets so many page views because it's actually terrible, and terribly addictive?
Since we're always focusing on the competition, here's a little pic of how Yahoo! is following along with facets.
Results for "bed pillows" with facets closed and open - Yahoo!
Some ideas to think about and links to follow:
Natural Language Search
PowerSet
PowerSet Blog Entry - What Did Steve Jobs Say about the iPod?
Barney Pell's Weblog - Powerset and Natural Language Search
True Knowledge
Slashdot Article - The Future of Google Search and Natural Language Queries
WordNet
Linguistics & Meaning via Wikipedia
Semantics
Semiotics
Linguistics
Philosophy of Language
Noam Chomsky
Generative Grammar
Universal Grammar
Poverty of the Stimulus
Informational Cascade
Groupthink
Fiction
1984
Newspeak
DoubleThink
George Orwell
Search
Ask
Clusty
Related Links:
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Posted at 10:20AM on Feb 27th 2008 by Naomi
Posted at 3:31PM on Jan 8th 2008 by Milissa Tarquini