In My Honest Opinion -- (I, MHo)

Semantic Search versus 20 Questions

Ask.com has been working on “semantic search” for quite some time, I believe.  And depending on how you define the feature/technology, it works pretty well.  But if it’s supposed to be a “magic” mind-reading search technology that basically understands all queries, then it’s pretty much doomed to fail.  I’ve always wondered if search engines would be better off trying to play “20 questions” with searchers in order to narrow down a search result.  (There’s a handheld game that plays 20 questions, too.)  I assume, though, that most searchers aren’t willing to answer 20 questions to narrow down their searches… But Google does seem to ask “Did you mean ___?” quite a bit — which is almost the same, but it doesn’t try to delve much deeper.