Will we see an intelligent successor to Google Reader or was 30 million well-spent to keep Apple out of the loop?
Wavii tried to use machine learning and natural language processing to give you a tailor-made news feed. Surely these are skills Google already has. The list of experts on both machine learning and natural language working at Google is so long that it´s hard to imagine they really needed this team.
Apple is rumored to have shown interest in Wavii as well to complement SIRI. Is monopolizing expertise in these key Google technologies the real reason to buy the company? A tell-tale sign is that they immediately shut-off the existing service.
What do you think; a serious attempt to re-introduce a really smart Reader or a defensive move?
#Tech
A defensive buy more than likely.
I can see this being really useful for the Google+ stream. Turn it into the place to get content and news smartly.
+Marc Belley I now recall that we used to have a stored search delivering news in the side-bar of G+. I even forgot the name of it.
Might be defensive as +James Barraford suggests but Google needs an incredible amount of data and the means to gather it to make its Knowledge Graph work. Sometimes the easiest way to get it is to buy it, along with the experience that comes with it. There really is a race on between Google, Apple, Bing and Yahoo on semantic search (voice search like Google Voice and Siri use a purely semantic index). Developments here are holding up the monetization of the mobile space so, I guess, there is a lot of cash riding on solving this successfully.
There is also a lot of Facebook-drawn data integrated in the Wavii index. That's data that was closed to Google, until now.
This will probably get plugged into Currents.
Google doesn´t need to buy WAVII to get more data +David Amerland nor to get experience.
I fully agree that the race for natural language interfacing combined with a deep understanding of the way we humans want to find information is key.
monopolizing the area by having all the experts working for you can be a viable strategy though and there are no anti-trust organizations who care about the people you hire.
I'd love to see an intelligent replacement for Google Reader, based on my known (or hashtag?) interests, though I must confess I have no idea how I want the content aggregated. I do know that Google Reader and Feedly aren't making me happy. I want my reader to find content for me, and not have to find it myself and then subscribe.
I'd rather see them fix Alerts than Reader. I prefer to be able to fine tune the results that I receive with operators.
+Max Huijgen Maybe they don't in terms of volume but they might in terms of relational value. One of the deep issues regarding semantic search is its need for verification of sources. That must increase the need for accuracy in the relational extraction of information by orders of magnitude. Given sufficient time this, of course can be addressed by Google – but time here is of the essence. Judging by the volatile quality of search results at the moment, it is still an issue. Maybe Wavii brings to the table a horde of such data?
+Dirk Talamasca thank you for reminding me. I need to get some alerts sent to me 🙂
+Michelle Cameron Unfortunately Alerts are crippled and are no longer performing as they did in the past. I am hopeful that this acquisition may breathe new life into them.
+Max Huijgen That stored news search was called "Sparks" if I remember correctly.
hard to imagine +David Amerland Verification requires time but scale as well. Wavii lacked the last for sure and I´m pretty sure Google has loads of feedback mechanisms built into their products to verify. The ad-business offers a nice feedback loop.
+Lee Smallwood topic 😉
Yip, tnx +Lars Siebold Sparks it was. I guess I was the only user 😉
+Lars Siebold Indeed.. Sparks – Sputtered
I would give anything to have a real Google News/Twitter news following feature built into G+. It's frustrating to no end having to jump back and forth. G+ presently can't touch Twitter for breaking news and/or news feeds.
+Max Huijgen True. Great share and convo!
A nice, slick reader in those acres of white space to the right would be a boon indeed. Much more use than birthday reminders, Fun and Interesting and SULs
+Jim Marsh After two years it's amazing Google has left that nonsense in place of actually useful tools.
A defensive play with a secret wish to make offensive. Perhaps the team can help convert technology to product in which case it would be a win.
Probably acq-hire. There is only so much good semantic talent in the world, and Google wants a lot of it.
First impression? Talent acquisition.
Also, #replacereader #newsblur
Newsblur is worth checking out.
Supposedly, it is a bid to acquire more natural language capabilities according to several posts I've seen over the last few days. An example of same posts is this one from PC Mag.com. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418211,00.asp
So #NewSum from +SciFY is probably now the only app that summarizes news from different news sources in a single text. Oh, I forgot! It is opensource and free, too. http://www.scify.gr/site/en/newsum-download-beta-en
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