Edmonton Startup Semanti Corp. recently demoed their new product at DEMO 08. Semanti is a Firefox plugin that sits on top of Google allowing users to search based on word's semantic meaning, the results are shown in a box above your google search results and are based on what other sites users have said belong in those categories. Check out their presentation at DEMO 08 (embeded below).
Check out www.semantifind.com to sign up for their beta.
Firefox market share: ~20%
Firefox users that would actually want to install an extension as such: /maybe/ 20% of that.
So already, 96% of the Web has no interest in this product, and I don't see the remaining 4% being very impressed.
They start out by talking about how modern search is so fruitless, about not being able to find things, but I can't relate to this problem at all. Certainly there's room for improvement, but most of the time I'm satisfied with what I'm getting.
So, search sucks, but your product is built on top of Google?
Then segue into a user interface that seems designed by Windows developers, and a weak, poorly scripted demo.
It's both interesting and unsurprising that the four executives of this company listed on the site come from high level positions at Intuit, one of the least innovative software companies around. You aren't making Quicktax anymore, dudes, you have to actually /make good software/. The idea of semantic search is good, but these guys are far from making an appealing product. I hope they're burning their own money and not someone elses.
I'm going to have to disagree about the Firefox thing. Heard of StumbleUpon? They were a Firefox extension for ages. And that was when Firefox had a lower market share. Beginning as a Firefox extension is not a bad place to start. Not to mention that they will have an extension for other browsers soon, thus covering the other ~ 80%. Also Firefox users tend to be more of the "early adopters" and thus more likely to try out a new product so creating something for them first seems like a logical first step.
As for the scripting of the Demo and the product itself, Dean from VentureBeat seemed to like it, and it has been getting some good press on blogs and twitter. Some people are going to like it, some people are not, that's the way it works with all new products.
http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/10/deans-picks-for-the-top-ten-companies-of-demofall-08/
