QUOTE

(12:35:22) chris: what is Absinthe ?
(12:35:23) encarta@conversagent.com: Welcome, Chris! My name is Encarta Instant Answers. I am a smart computer who can bring you the Encarta info you want right in your IM window!

Here are some questions you can ask me:

* I want to see the map of Sweden.

* When was Abraham Lincoln born?

* What is a cello?



Type your question and I'll look it up for you!
(12:35:50) chris: What is Absinthe?
(12:35:51) encarta@conversagent.com: Wormwood, substance used to make absinthe: Wormwood, common name for a perennial herb or shrubby plant of the family of composite flowers. Native to Europe, it was cultivated in the gardens of....
(12:36:23) chris: in the gardens of what?
(12:36:24) encarta@conversagent.com: I don't think I know.  Maybe Encarta has an answer. =>
(12:37:01) chris: It does, you were about to tell me then you just seemed to trail off!
(12:37:01) encarta@conversagent.com: I'm afraid I won't be able to find anything about this in the encyclopedia.



What does the flag of South Korea look like?  Ask me, and I might even play its national anthem too.
(12:37:22) chris: i was asking about where absinthe was grown
(12:37:23) encarta@conversagent.com: I'm not sure I understood you correctly.  Let's try an Encarta search. =>
(12:37:24) encarta@conversagent.com: Hey, I've been sending you invitations to start the Encarta application but I didn't get any answer!

Didn't see my invitations?  Maybe you are using an old version of MSN Messenger that doesn't support activities.

Type "What version of MSN Messenger do I need?" for more info, or just "Invite me!" if you want me to send you an invitation.
(12:37:55) chris: OHHHHH, okay. Im using Gaim on linux.
(12:37:56) encarta@conversagent.com: Let's try looking in Encarta. =>

I can't show you the results since you don't have the Encarta application open.  Type "Invite me" to open it.
(12:38:05) chris: Invite me
(12:38:05) encarta@conversagent.com: OK, I'm sending you another invitation to open the Encarta application:
(12:38:25) chris: Does Gaim work?
(12:38:28) encarta@conversagent.com: Let's see what Encarta can tell us. =>

I can't show you the results since you don't have the Encarta application open.  Type "Invite me" to open it.
(12:38:45) chris: What version of MSN messenger do i need?
(12:38:45) encarta@conversagent.com: In order to start activities, you need a recent version of MSN Messenger for Windows (you need at least version 6.0).

To check what version you have, click Help, and then click About in the main window.



You can download the latest version here: http://messenger.msn.com/Download/
(12:39:12) chris: What is wormwood
(12:39:13) encarta@conversagent.com: Wormwood: Wormwood, common name for a perennial herb or shrubby plant of the family of composite flowers. Native to Europe, it was cultivated in the gardens of....

I can't show you the results since you don't have the Encarta application open.  Type "Invite me" to open it.

QUOTE

Think about that for a second – a learning computer. One that just doesn’t follow rules assigned to it (which is what the more traditional algorithmic search engines like Google and Yahoo! do) but actually can learn from its results.

Essentially MSN search learns from input given to it. For example, if the search engine is told that Ebay is considered an authoritative site on online auctions, then when a person performs such a search they should see Ebay.com at the top of the search results.

Upon analyzing Ebay.com the search engine can then learn why it is considered an authority and apply that learning to other sites to see if they are also authoritative.

The biggest advantage of such a platform is the engineers at MSN can “train” the system to understand what is considered relevant and important and what isn’t. As time goes on we would expect to see MSN search become one of the most relevant of all the search engines simply because the system is designed to improve itself over time.

Of course like any search engine, MSN could be tricked. If we knew what those factors were, we could create a page which could be considered highly relevant, based on the MSN search criteria but would in fact be a garbage page. However because of its ability to learn, the system could quickly adapt to such spam content and readjust rankings “on the fly” to filter out these bogus results.

Another advantage to MSN is that the system should be infinitely scalable. Which means as the use of the search grows, it should only be a matter of introducing new hardware, or requirements into the system, having it adapt to the additions and begin using them as if they’ve existed all along.

Therefore, as new spam techniques are developed, its simply a matter of training the system to watch out for the new technique, flag it as potential spam and even potentially react to it by filtering all sites using the new technique.

By now you are probably saying “holy cow that type of technology must use a ton of resources” and you’d be correct.

The amount of computational power required by such a system would be immense. Just the storage capacity needed to store what the system has “learned” would have to continue to grow. In addition, the system also has a great crawler out indexing more and more content all the time.

It’s not your typical algorithmic based engine. With most algorithmic systems, the ranking algorithms are finite in size. With this system, one would expect the Neural Net to continue to grow as new pathways are created.

Consider this structure as similar to a human brain – as we develop new thoughts and ideas, new synaptic pathways are developed linking areas of the brain to other areas where links previously didn’t exist. Essentially this is what a Neural Network does. While its pathways may not be physical, it does nonetheless develop relationships between previously unrelated sections.

Therefore, the engineers at MSN have developed ways to “shortcut” the requirements for ranking. Essentially they have said “sure there are over 500 factors determining the page quality, but in this category only 150 are used, therefore you can use the same 150 associated with this category.”

Overall, as long as Microsoft can continue to support such a system, I would think that it could win out in the “search engine wars.” The system appears (at least on paper) to be superior to algorithmic based systems, and appears to be able to adapt more quickly to changes on the web because it doesn’t have to wait for an algorithm change to adapt, it only has to learn of the change and apply itself.