Raving news about hakia’s so-called “credible online health search” proliferated the Web in April. Since then, a deafening silence threatened to condemn hakia to the darkest corner of the Web, but luckily enough they had some more coverage with the launch of their semantic API. Both attempts at news left hakia in its cone of shadow, where even the company itself condemns its services.

The problem with hakia is not a lack of quality, but bad PR.

A press release bragging about a service that’s been already offered by Google almost one year before will not impress anyone. Google Health was announced on June 6, 2007 on the Official Google Blog – but the program was planned somewhere in 2006. Even Microsoft has an online health product, launched in October 2007.

So how does hakia expect to “evolve beyond pigeons” when it’s pretty clear that its pace is at least one year behind its competitors? hakia’s health search program brings nothing new to the industry, on the contrary: it appears to be a desperate attempt of generating news out of nothing.

The launch of the semantic API could be news, but unfortunately, as with everything they launched so far, hakia was in a hurry to release a product without actually refining it. Negative comments on Techrunch’s coverage are a good indication of the public’s response to the news.

These two examples are enough to answer a “what’s wrong with hakia?” question, but I’d like to go into a deeper analysis, to show simple elements whose common sense meaning and message failed hakia’s scrutiny.

hakia’s very landing page has a negative “web language.” The homepage shows that hakia’s PR problems start “at home.” Please study the image below.

As you can see, hakia defines itself as “A New Semantic Search Engine – dedicated to quality.” Whoever came up with that slogan certainly made a market research that showed that all other “semantic search engines”, which are “older” than hakia, are “dedicated to crap.” Do you see where I am coming from?

Although we cannot define Google as a semantic search engine, it’s fair to note here that this engine already uses semantic technology, in at least the form of LSI – latent semantic indexing, a search algorithm based on latent semantic analysis (LSA). Whatever technology is behind hakia at this moment, the results displayed after typing a query in its search box are still not as relevant as Google’s.

Now let me move on from the “A New Semantic Search Engine – dedicated to quality” slogan, to what hakia features on its landing page.

Three columns (hakia vs. Google, syndication web services and mobile application), each highlighting another element, should “sell” hakia as the “new IT”, but instead these features trigger negative reactions?

hakia vs. Google

hakia has been in beta since as far as I remember, but this is not the worst thing. They can be beta forever as far as I am concerned, but the mistake here is: “how can you place on the landing page a -compare hakia vs Google – when Google is a service backed up by more than 10 years of developments?” The web users who don’t really care about hakia’s ideals and visions will compare results from the two, just to conclude that Google is still more relevant. Sure, hakia already suggests what to type in the query box that makes hakia look better than Google, but once you deviate from hakia’s patterns and type in something else… the winner is still Google. Comparing hakia vs Google: a very bad idea.

Even given that they may have a much more refined search engine in the background, why would you not incrementally interpose the next version over the top of the current engine? Just saying that there is something great in the background is not enough to convince me or anyone else. Point is: if you are better and greater than Google, dear hakia, prove it!

syndication web services

Offer your visitors semantic search experience and much more” – says hakia in this column. To see either the services or the Search Box option you’ll have to join the hakia club. hakia doesn’t even offer a link to basic information about these “syndication web services.” Apparently the “guess what” philosophy should make the users curious enough to join hakia’s club. Another bad PR approach. hakia is either ignoring the 3 important rules of user response time, or whoever decides what goes on that page has never heard about them.

mobile application

This last “feature” takes us away from hakia’s home page to hakia’s API partner berggi. Luckily I’ve done my homework and I know why berggi is present there, but the typical user will not even wonder.

Since the “syndication web services” links take us to hakia’s “club” page where two penguins tell us hakia’s probable motto: “patience, curiosity, silence and … more patience… that’s us”, I cannot end this “review” without a personal observation: silence is deafening, hakia. Somehow, there are still some believers hoping you’ll prove your value any day soon, waiting patiently for your penguins to learn how to fly. But if you keep up this pace everything you work and stand for is doomed to remain in the forgotten corner of the web where your “new semantic search engine dedicated to quality” is parked now, while “older semantic search engines dedicated to crap” will still rule the web.