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We will be shutting down neeva.com

neeva.com

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Re: We will be shutting down neeva.com

#41

Post by shortformblog »

I feel bad this is how the journey ended for Neeva. I will say the big challenge for any competitor to Google from my point of view is that nobody else has as compelling of a search-based news product, and likewise the size of Google’s moat from Google Books is going to be a massive lift for any company to compete with.

I am a special case because I do a lot of research. Not having anything close to Google Books has made nearly every search engine that’s not Google a nonstarter for me. And it’s not hard to see how other search engines could compete with that—work closely with the Internet Archive to put a really strong front end on that. But Google put the hard work into winning the long-running legal battle to keep that thing alive, and the result is that they now get to benefit from its stickiness for decades to come.

But credit where credit’s due. Google built a good moat, one so good that even people who stay abreast of alternative search engines can struggle to leave its clutches.

Re: We will be shutting down neeva.com

#42

Post by jjeaff »

echelon wrote: post #22
marban wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bing doesn't need to win — they just want Google to be a little less profitable.

Or a lot less profitable. “From now on, the [gross margin] of search is going to drop forever,” Nadella said in an interview with the Financial Times. “There is such margin in search, which for us is incremental. For Google it’s not, they have to defend it all,” he added, referring to the competition against Google as “asymmetric”. https://www.ft.com/content/2d48d982-80b2-49f3-8a83-f5afef98e... https://archive.is/4JO…

I'm curious what the 50% figure includes?

Because my understanding is that about 60% of Google's total revenue is search ads, and if you include network ads (which would be relevant since they are at risk from AI as well) then it is more like 70%.

Re: We will be shutting down neeva.com

#43

Post by freedomben »

They talk about how hard it is to convince users to switch:

> From the unnecessary friction required to change default search settings, to the challenges in helping people understand the difference between a search engine and a browser, acquiring users has been really hard.

How many users are we talking about? That would be great to know and since they're shutting down can they tell us? On a different page[1] they say:

> Even with a limited trial period, hundreds of thousands of users search with Neeva every month

hundreds of thousands and it can't be sustainable? How many users do they think they need to make it sustainable? What were the targets?

[1]: https://neeva.com/blog/introducing-neeva-free-basic-and-neev...

Re: We will be shutting down neeva.com

#44

Post by tpmx »

m-i-l wrote: post #25

Note that Neeva wasn't exactly a small player, managing to burn through $77.5M in VC funding over the space of just 3 years[0]. Note also that, at least at the start of that 3 year period, they simply bought in results from Bing rather than build their own index[1]. [0] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/neeva [1] https://www.protocol.com/neeva-search

Note also that, at least at the start of that 3 year period, they simply bought in results from Bing rather than build their own index[1].

That sounds to me like they failed hard, both from a technical point of view and marketing-wise. (This is the first time I've heard of them.)

Simply burning through lots of money is not an interesting factor.

Edit: I tried it out: https://i.imgur.com/0YBorgG.png

Re: We will be shutting down neeva.com

#45

Post by hrpnk »

While they shut down their consumer-facing product (not the company), they will explore a B2B pivot:

"Over the past year, we’ve seen the clear, pressing need to use LLMs effectively, inexpensively, safely, and responsibly. Many of the techniques we have pioneered with small models, size reduction, latency reduction, and inexpensive deployment are the elements that enterprises really want, and need, today. We are actively exploring how we can apply our search and LLM expertise in these settings, and we will provide updates on the future of our work and our team in the next few weeks."

Re: We will be shutting down neeva.com

#46

Post by impulser_ »

mg wrote: post #29

throughout this journey, we’ve discovered that it is one thing to build a search engine, and an entirely different thing to convince regular users of the need to switch to a better choice On the other hand, ChatGPT is the fastest growing product in human history. Because it beats Google for many types of searches. A friend of mine recently said that a good old Google search now feels like having to go to the library.…

Google is already building domain specific LLMs. They have Med-PaLM for medical, and Sec-PaLM for security.

Re: We will be shutting down neeva.com

#47

Post by amadeuspagel »

> Contrary to popular belief, convincing users to pay for a better experience was actually a less difficult problem compared to getting them to try a new search engine in the first place.

These things seem related. Was it possible to try neeva for free? Even if so, a search engine is something you have to try again and again to become convinced. I try every free search engine I see on HN, but that's not realistic and convincing if I'm not really searching for anything right now.

Since I've heard of marginalia[1], I've been trying it a few times when I was frustrated with google results, and sometimes I got better results. That's how you I learned to appreciate it. But for that it has to be free.

[1]: https://search.marginalia.nu/

Re: We will be shutting down neeva.com

#48

Post by sroussey »

tpmx wrote: post #44
m-i-l wrote: post #25

Note that Neeva wasn't exactly a small player, managing to burn through $77.5M in VC funding over the space of just 3 years[0]. Note also that, at least at the start of that 3 year period, they simply bought in results from Bing rather than build their own index[1]. [0] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/neeva [1] https://www.protocol.com/neeva-search

Note also that, at least at the start of that 3 year period, they simply bought in results from Bing rather than build their own index[1]. That sounds to me like they failed hard, both from a technical point of view and marketing-wise. (This is the first time I've heard of them.) Simply burning through lots of money is not an interesting factor. Edit: I tried it out: https://i.imgur.com/0YBorgG.png

Microsoft is also not letting people use the Bing API for AI anymore. I was curious if Neeva would survive that. I guess we have the answer.

Re: We will be shutting down neeva.com

#50

Post by kossTKR »

tpmx wrote: post #44
m-i-l wrote: post #25

Note that Neeva wasn't exactly a small player, managing to burn through $77.5M in VC funding over the space of just 3 years[0]. Note also that, at least at the start of that 3 year period, they simply bought in results from Bing rather than build their own index[1]. [0] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/neeva [1] https://www.protocol.com/neeva-search

Note also that, at least at the start of that 3 year period, they simply bought in results from Bing rather than build their own index[1]. That sounds to me like they failed hard, both from a technical point of view and marketing-wise. (This is the first time I've heard of them.) Simply burning through lots of money is not an interesting factor. Edit: I tried it out: https://i.imgur.com/0YBorgG.png

Never heard of Neeva either.

Sometimes i wonder how much "business" is about getting gov. subsidies, grants or scamming the masses, then distributing wealth to friends and family horizontally to elite peers.

Amounts that seem absurd to billions of working class people disappear on the daily apparently with zero value ever created - i've seen this happen enough times IRL to realise that most business is part performance, part deception around very little actual core value, - businesstheater almost.

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