Precise information from Zook mobile search

Zook is a fetch engine that provides precise answers for every query, with the additional option of human assistance, on your mobile phone. Akhtar Pasha reports

Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently wrote in Founder’s Letter, “Almost a third of all Google searches in Japan are coming from mobile devices—a leading indicator of where the rest of the world will soon be”. Bangalore-based Ziva Software had anticipated this opportunity when it developed Zook, a mobile fetch engine, which it claims is more technologically advanced than Google, Yahoo or Bing. For starters, Zook is different from the established search engines that generate hundreds of links if a user searches for information; Zook provides ‘precise answers’ to every user query. It fetches exact answers and not links to matching Web pages. It also utilizes community participation and an active feedback loop to improve the quality of results.

Using Zook on a phone

You can access the Zook fetch engine at zook.in/wap or download a client for Symbian S60 3rd edition and above devices from www.zook.in/client. Once you start searching, you will see the difference. For example, if you enter Kishore Kumar, the engine cuts through the clutter that is generally found in Web pages such as heavy graphics, high-resolution pictures and like. It then picks up the precise information associated with Web pages and gives ‘direct consumable information’ to the user, which in this case gives the option of downloading MP3, videos, ringback tones, wallpapers of Kishore Kumar and more.

Dr Ajay Sethi, CEO, Ziva Software, said, “Instead of giving thousands of links for the same search, which eats into the bandwidth quota of a mobile user and is at times difficult to load in a phone’s mini-browser, we provide precise information to users for their queries. We also have a service whereby users can ask question using SMS to get answers. We are the ‘only mobile search company that offers this exclusive service—which is based on WAP and SMS with human assisted search for precise information.”

SMS-based answers

The SMS search option lets you search for a string such as “movies Bangalore” by sending an SMS to the 57575665 short-code. Zook returns the matching results as a SMS response to your phone. You can continue the search process by replying with the number corresponding to the presented options (e.g., “5” for restricting the search to English language movies). The system interprets the subsequent actions of the user in the context of the preceding interactions (i.e., the existing conversation). Zook also utilizes community participation and an active feedback loop to fine tune the quality of results. What is perhaps more significant is the fact that human beings review answers sent as responses to the SMS-based searches. This helps Zook ensure that every user query is provided with an exact and relevant answer immediately. Dr Sethi said, “We use human intelligence to get close to the precise information that the user had asked for in SMS. Since the user is paying Rs 3 per SMS for every query to the mobile service provider, our intention is to provide precise and consumable information so that his query is addressed in one answer.”

Dr Sethi added, “Both ‘direct answers’ (for mobile Web users) and ‘human-assisted answers’ (for SMS users) are unique services and these are not offered by Google, Yahoo, etc. As compared to the traditional Web search services, these unique services offer higher value to mobile operators and handset manufacturers. Additionally, to offer our direct-to-consumer services, we collaborate and partner with mobile operators and handset manufacturers to reach out to end-users.”

Backend systems

When you enter your search query into Zook, it goes to the mobile service provider and from there it is routed to Zook’s backend systems. These consist of three components. The first is the mobile Search Engine that has all the local information, which is indexed. The second is the Extraction Platform that pulls out the Web pages that have relevant information. It, in turn, gives this information to the third and final component, the Data Pipeline, which does the data cleaning and extraction of the relevant information and then adds it to the index. The Search Engine uses core Java, while Ziva’s development team has written the Extraction Platform in Perl and the Data Pipeline in Clojure, a dynamic programming language that targets the Java Virtual Machine.

Let us understand how Zook fetches your search in the background. Once the request hits the Zook search engine, it looks for information locally and returns the same. If the information is unavailable, the search engine connects to the Internet cloud and looks for pages with mobile-specific information. To do so, it breaks up pages into smaller segments with the help of visual cues. It then analyzes the leaf-level of data to evaluate if the data will be useful from mobile user’s perspective. Zook extracts and delivers only relevant mobile-specific portions to the users. Therefore, unlike Opera and other services, Zook analyzes the page content not just structurally but also for its relevance to the user. Dr Sethi explained that the Web page was broken into smaller parts (segments) with the help of visual cues and analyzed semantically. The system identifies information-rich segments and ignores navigational segments (such as header, menus, ad blocks, etc.). Information-rich segments are recursively analyzed to build a hierarchy of segments leading to the precise information.

Third party service providers

Ziva has collaborated with several mobile operators including Idea Cellular, Spice, Aircel and Virgin Mobile to offer SMS-based and WAP-based services. Zook has been powering Nokia and Infomedia’s local search solutions in India since 2007.

Zook provides local search and human-assisted search solutions via the IdeaFresh portal and vertical search solutions such as specialized portal for roaming users for Idea Cellular. Similarly, it provides SMS-based search service for Virgin Mobile India provided on 58686 with the ‘Ask’ keyword. It also provides off-deck search service via Aircel’s mobile portal.

Ziva has partnerships with several ‘loop completion’ companies in India. For instance, it has tie-ups with BookMyShow for purchase and delivery of movie tickets; with HungryZone for restaurants table booking, food delivery; with iMint for loyalty and rewards points redemption and with Infomedia for providing qualified leads to the Yellow Page vendors to name a few.

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Area of Operation

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