When I heard that PrismaStar has helped several retailers greatly increase their sales, I had to see just how their search technology did that. After seeing it I wonder why they haven't been purchased yet by one of the big search companies. - Robert Scoble from Bookmarklet

More like, Amazon, why haven't you bought this company yet? - blake

its like asking why thye did not buy Like.com.. where is the ROI's ? - Peter Dawson

blake: yeah, that would be an obvious company to buy them too, but the patent they own could help a bigger engine even more. - Robert Scoble

Peter: what's the ROI of Bing.com taking another percent of market share? - Robert Scoble

Yeah, great video as always, an app like that applied to the web or search engine would be real innovation the kind that would get so much press you wouldn't need to spend hundreds of millions to advertise - Stephen Pickering

Google is more into replicating things at their end rather than spending money on buying. MS and Yahoo struggling with fixing the search, rather than improving it. - Veetrag

Robert, as a compliment, The video camera angles are working much better now. - Kreg Steppe

Veetrag, exactly, "Don't Solve Problems. Pursue Opportunities" - Stephen Pickering

Veetrag: that's not true. Microsoft has gone ahead of Google in quite a few areas with Bing. And Microsoft purchased several companies to do that (Powerset, Farecast, etc) - Robert Scoble

the CAPEX on bing has already been consumed (MSFT way) - so how can they divisfy ? at least MSFT . As for GOOG's . why assimulate something which really has services which is cross docking with Amazon ?? - Peter Dawson

I think its sick that they can patent this sort of thing. I bet there is prior art out there. - Luke™

Besides its utility, people want something to play with. The public would go crazy over those little sliders. it's like going to the fair or something - Stephen Pickering

Kreg: that's Rocky Barbanica, Building43 producer. By the way, this video is one of the most expensive we've ever done. Took us a week in UK to find this company and get excited enough to pull out our two HD camcorders. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I agree Powerset and few other purchases have been really good move but have those turned out well for MS. I would be happy to see some of powerset kind of features in Bing soon. - Veetrag

Apostol: we carry two $6,000 Panasonic camcorders. A lot more expensive than $200 Flips. - Robert Scoble

Veetrag: yes, those acquisitions have worked out very well. Search at Microsoft is finally gaining share and is impressing people. Have you used it? Video, shopping, and travel are all best of breed now (among the big search companies). - Robert Scoble

As #Microsoft already has #bing #Shopping http://www.bing.com/shoppin... which does somwhat similar to #Primastar #Answeroil solution and #MSFT has bought #Caio - Ashith Raj

Luke: I haven't seen any prior art, but the way the patent system works is those things will get decided on when there's a conflict. - Robert Scoble

Its a nice way to differentiate. - Jeff Stannard

Apostol: well, when you see the full resolution you'll see I don't agree at all. But we get better compression on the expensive videos because they are cleaner to start with. Also, by using two cameras you can edit and give a much more professional look. Believe me, I love low-cost video too (most of my career has been made with cheap cameras) but there's a place for the expensive stuff too. - Robert Scoble

@scoble I use bing regularly and for few days I switched my default to bing. Its very impressive and sure, would gain popularity too. - Veetrag

from what its shown in the video, its not a technological breakthrough, but using common search technologies to come up with custom solution for dedicated clients. Bing, Google are operating on all together different bigger space i.e. generic search. - Ruchit Garg

Another factor I like about Bing is, the traffic it is sending to my site. For an infrequent blogger like me, only source of traffic was Google. But Bing being able to index it proves that the cralwer is much better, indexing is better and thus results are better. - Veetrag

Ruchit: you didn't watch enough of the video. See how it could improve traditional search. - Robert Scoble

Ruchit: and, even if you were correct, the high value search customers are those who are buying things. It certainly could be used to improve the shopping areas on search engines, which would improve their profitability and usability. - Robert Scoble

I'm sure everyone who has commented here has also spent hours searching and re-searching through shopping and retail sites, and felt that growing sense of frustration that it's taking too long to find what you're looking for. If this gets implemented at *some* sites, those *without* it will certainly suffer.. I'd love to see this on Amazon... - Andrew Terry

@Scoble this app is kinda similar even if its only got one slider.. http://examples.adobe.com/flex2... I bet there are a bunch of flex apps with multiple "interdependent" sliders. - Luke™

Luke: if it only has one slider it isn't the same. :-) - Robert Scoble

@Apolsotol looks like lots of sliders there. - Luke™

with regard to the sliders on keyword searches, it would be super-cool if (on searches of, say 3 - 4 terms) it looked at the frequency of other keywords within your results and offered those related keywords up for you depending on your slider settings so that you further narrow or expand your searches. - Andrew Terry

I agree that this kind of weighted multi-parameter search specification and the monitoring that they provide is a major advance in search technology. Not sure whether anyone is already doing it, but the patent grant is a very good sign! - John W Lewis

It seems that http://www.Laptop.Bg is not the same. It looks as though it filters (on or off) on multiple parameters, but is not providing sequencing based on weighting of relative importance of those parameters. - John W Lewis

I don't understand why he's claiming that nobody else in the world can search/sort on multiple dimensions. I do that every day when writing SQL, using our in-house dev tools, when browsing newegg, ebay, mint, etc. They should NOT have been granted that patent. - xero

+1 xero - Todd Hoff

Does SQL alone allow sequencing based on weighted contributions from the values of multiple fields? - John W Lewis

@scoble I agree with your second comment that "the high value search customers are those who are buying things. It certainly could be used to improve the shopping areas on search engines, which would improve their profitability and usability". I just dont see why bing and google cannot do it using what they have today!. - Ruchit Garg

xero: the patent is for using two connected sliders. I don't remember seeing sliders in SQL Server. I don't remember seeing that UI used anywhere else on the Internet, either, but who knows? I'm not a patent attorney. - Robert Scoble

Speaking of new cool things, when is that new Dell coming? - Mark

I should apply for a patent on multiple checkboxes. ! - Luke™

Mark: I bought it yesterday at Best Buy. I am loading it up now. - Robert Scoble

I meant that secret dell you blogged about last month - Mark

The patent is just for using linked sliders? The way he talked it sounded like it was the algorithm to search/sort on multiple dimensions, not that the mechanism of doing that with slider controls. That said, Mint.com has had that for a long time, and I know I used it at some point before 2000, I just don't remember what desktop app it was. Games have used connected sliders for settings, but that's not to filter search results. - xero

The scheduling software my employer writes does very complex "sequencing based on weighted contributions from the values of multiple fields". And has been since 1997 I think. But, we don't have it displayed in linked sliders. In fact, all scheduling software does that, even Microsoft Project. Just no sliders. I will refuse to pay them royalties for a basic UI element for sorting data when I know all of the individual pieces have already been used, and when I could build the same mechanisms in less than a day. - xero

The problem with searching for retail products is rarely with the ability to filter and sort, it's with the dimensions they provide for doing so and the inclusion of duplicates. In the video you could filter on thickness. That means someone had to enter the thickness into the database as a dimension. Newegg suffers from this problem all the time. They have great search tools but you still have to spend forever browsing because two or three dimensions that you care about are not available for filtering/sorting. - xero

Holy crap, Robert, you're right. I watched the video and one of those companies should definitely buy them. Now. Honestly, it's simple and immediately intuitive and exactly mirrors our natural selection process. Crazy. - Chieze Okoye

Video doesn't seem to want to load for me :( - Steve Farnworth

Also, gotta love the armchair patent-lawyering going on in here. Does anyone have the actual patent number? - Chieze Okoye

Xero - in reply to your comment "I don't understand why he's claiming that nobody else in the world can search/sort on multiple dimensions." I agree with you - the patent cannot be about that - it exists and is FREE- it's just that this guy clearly has no idea what the rest of the World are up to! also - Robert - I challenge you to get any statistics on the claimed 30% increase in sales, and even the names of the 'several US camera sellers' do they exist? Robert - please research more carefully before posting such ridiculous claims! thanks - Jelly Roll Morton

Patents: http://www.google.com/patents... and http://www.google.com/patents... - jzt

REAL sales Conversion Rate (C.R.) data: 1-month trailing C.R. pre-selector - 1.25%; 1-month trailing C.R. post-selector - 2.15%. 72% documented increase in C.R. for users who used the selector. Over 700,000 live users during the 2-month the test period. Contact PrismaStar and they will provide documentation to prove it if you sign their NDA. - jzt

A quick lesson on patent law: Ice cream on a stick -- not patentable. Chocolate over ice cream -- not patentable. Ice cream on a stick dipped in chocolate -- patentable (well, in this precise example ice cream on a stick already exists in the public domain, so it wouldn't be patentable, but hopefully you get the idea). PrismaStar won this patent because nobody ever COMBINED interdependent sliders relating to multiple search attributes WITH dynamically-sorting results. Clear now? - jzt

Another real example: CTR before AnswerOil: 2.5%. CTR after AnswerOil: 8.9%. Again, sign an NDA and PrismaStar will show you the data, although you can also read about this example here: http://www.iea.cz/index... PrismaStar won a very prestigious award in the Czech Republic for this, beating-out name brand websites such as T-Mobile, Volkswagen, and Vodafone. THANK YOU, Robert, for doing your research! ;) - jzt

There is an amazing example of this fantastic technology here at D-Link, although it's by http://www.easy2.com a USA company - Click "Find your router" http://www.dlink.com/categor... These guys will send you Customer White Papers without having to sign an NDA and they have over 15 examples and plenty of testimonials on their website. - Jelly Roll Morton

Well whatever CTR is .....it ain't conversion rate is it? - Jelly Roll Morton

For those looking for prior art - here it is - Interdependent sliders in Flash from 2004 http://www.senocular.com/flash... - Jelly Roll Morton

Is it true that Prismastar closed their Cambridge office? How will Microsoft know where to go now? - Jelly Roll Morton