I profiled semantic search startup Yebol today on eWEEK.com.
This startup promises to index every term imaginable from a semantic search standpoint come November. It will also index new semantic terms on the fly. Wow! We can’t see that yet, but that will be impressive if it proves true.
Google hasn’t formally done much with semantics, but we know it uses them in results, while Bing, Hakia, Kosmix and others leverage this intelligence. Yebol will blow these out of the water in a few months.
My first search was for “pizza”:
Yebol.com master pic.png
Note related topics on left; Top Sites in the middle, which showcase leading information destinations; and expanded topics and Twitter tweets with the word “pizza” on the right.
Then I tried “pizza, fairfield, ct.,” a town near me. It surfaced local restaurants that offer pizza along with a Yahoo Map with five options to click on and get directions. Neat! Very useful for me:
Yebol.com pizza farfield.png
A search for “cancer” yields new categories on the right:
Yebol.com cancer.png
Per the article, here is a longer keyword search for “Tom Cruise Katie Holmes Fight”:
Yebol tom cruise.png
That list form is exactly what Yebol will get away from in a few months, as the holistic semantic search engine and presentation kicks in.
Should we be skeptical? Sure, offering to index every term from a semantic point of view is a bold claim from Yebol. What’s more doubtful is whether or not Yebol can win any share.
Bing has the massive weight of Microsoft behind it; Yebol is launching from obscurity. Good luck, but it sure is a fun search engine to play with on a holiday weekend.