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Wundrbar is the next generation of search (YC Winter 08)

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Re: Wundrbar is the next generation of search (YC Winter 08)

#16

Post by s3graham »

i think it would be a good idea to push what functionality is available on the main page; i trolled through what might be there by doing "a" backspace, "b", backspace, "c". also, more than half of the "sample commands" i handle as keyword searches in FF or as prefix: to google: i think those could be more compelling.

also, minor bug report: "bestbuy ipod" redirected me to a page on bestbuy.com that was empty.

neat implementation though, looking forward to seeing further iterations.

Re: Wundrbar is the next generation of search (YC Winter 08)

#18

Post by ngrandy »

aneesh wrote: post #8

It would be cool to have this integrated into Firefox's address bar (I know the wikipedia trick already is).

Aneesh, if you install the wundrbar toolbar for firefox you can actually replace the location bar with wundrbar! It's a big leap, but it's there as an option. Or you can just use the toolbar, which automatically positions itself below the location bar.

Re: Wundrbar is the next generation of search (YC Winter 08)

#19

Post by ngrandy »

codeview wrote: post #15

Which is the best place to get started with computational semantics ?Wundrbar seem to interpret search queries very efficiently.

There are a ton of different ways to approach the problem of interpreting a command. if you're interested in a solid reference for computational linguistics, then i recommend either 'speech and language processing' by jurafsky et al or the 'oxford handbook of computational linguistics'. finally, the forthcoming information retrieval book (http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~hinrich/information-retrieval-...) is a fantastic resource.

however, keep in mind that a lot of the stuff in these books has been used more at the academic level than in commercial applications. we at wundrbar are being very careful not to bite off more than we can chew. many companies have tried and failed to tackle natural language processing, and we are NOT doing that; we feel like we can add a lot of value without trying to do anything too fancy. our commands right now are identified by keywords located at the start of the command - simple, intuitive, reliable.

Re: Wundrbar is the next generation of search (YC Winter 08)

#20

Post by ngrandy »

dkasper wrote: post #7

One thing people don't want to do is have to memorize a syntax just to use a search engine. A lot of people have trouble with Google as it is. I realize that the idea is to augment traditional search engines' capabilities (so that people will have less trouble), but it's going to have to be easy for non-hackers to catch on to it. The learning curve has to be shallow or the average user is going to give up on it. That…

yes! we've built wundrbar to be intuitive, precisely because it's annoying to need a man page every time we use a new command. wundrbar aims to capture the power and simplicity of a traditional command line (including the ability script and pipe) and to throw in some magic dust so that you don't have to remember the exact command name or what order the parameters come in.

for example, imagine sending money with paypal from the traditional command line. there are two pieces of information, a number (amount of money) and an email. well, in a traditional command, you would have to enter those parameters in a fixed order, or add a flag so the command read 'paypal -to joe@example.com -amount 5'. but really, a number and an email look quite different, and the command should be able to figure out which is which, right? that's what wundrbar does. so 'paypal joe@example.com 5' or 'paypal 5 joe@example.com', both are good.

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