Yohay Barsky, CTO and Co-Founder of SortFix

PromotionWorld: Tell us a few words about yourself and your professional background? What were you engaged in before starting the SortFix project?

Yohay Barsky: My name is Yohay Barsky and I'm the CTO and co-founder of SortFix. My professional background is in the field of applied physics (mainly electro optics).

PromotionWorld: How did you come up with the idea to create new search engine and why?

Yohay Barsky: We thought about a search experience that would be more intuitive, easier and much more relevant. After several months of research we came up with the conclusion that in order to truly improve search relevancy the search engine must communicate better with the user in order to understand his true needs.
 
PromotionWorld: Would you explain how SortFix works and what makes it different from the other search engines?

Yohay Barsky: SortFix solution is based on two levels, the first is a fun drag &drop visual search querying; the second is  "Power Words" extractions methodology.
 
The "Power words" algorithms scan the search results and 'hunt' the best words for you (using advanced language processing), and with the visual search querying interface you can simply (by drag&drop) add or remove the extracted "Power words" to/from your search query. Doing so, will make your search much more focused, and of course you'll get in return successful results.

The combination of this the two features (each one unique on its own right) set SortFix apart from all other search engines. SortFix is the only search engine that lets any user easily describe his exact needs even if he is not familiar with the search subject (check it yourself- you will see that by using SortFix you will produced longer and detailed search queries compared to your current queries). Not only does SortFix guide you to the best possible related terms, it also highlights unrelated term, that may clatter the search results and should be removed from the search (by dragging them to "Remove Box" )




PromotionWorld: How do you manage to achieve relevant results in response to search queries?

Yohay Barsky: SortFix objective is to help the user to better communicate with the search engine. So basically you have all the power of your favorite search engine plus the power to adjust the results according to your individual needs (by specifying your own exact query).

PromotionWorld: How would you recommend SortFix to our readers? 

Yohay Barsky: We say, keep on using your familiar search engine (GOOGLE, YAHOO!, MSN…) , just get a WHOLE more out of it! What I mean is, SORTFIX will help you ask your search engine the right question and therefore promising you get the right answer, in a fraction of the time you spent before. 

PromotionWorld: What is your secret weapon for competing with the search engine giants?

Yohay Barsky: Our secret weapon is quite simple – we aren’t competing with them, we work in synergy with them, we help the user ask the relevant query and the 'giant' search engines give the relevant answer.

PromotionWorld: Aren’t you afraid that search engines might be replaced by other ways of finding resources on the web like social bookmarking for example?

Yohay Barsky: Well, as we all know, the web is constantly changing due to new technology (broadband, faster mobile phones…) , new social apps (StumbleUpon, Dig,…) , communities (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn), Sortfix is applicable to all of the above and part of our vision is to be there for the user no matter where he is searching.
 
PromotionWorld: What are your plans and ambitions for SortFix? How do you see it evolving over the next years?

Yohay Barsky: We plan on being there for every user and search activity.  The main issue is to continue developing the next generation search environment that will truly understand the user (by using our Proprietary semantic algorithms and search UI)

PromotionWorld: What's your definition of the ideal search engine?

Yohay Barsky: Before the internet area the best way to find information was to go to the library and describe your need to the librarian.  The professional librarian used his knowledge (about the books in the library) and ask you to narrow your search (say you need "art book" he can ask whether you need "modern art"  or "classic art" if you say “modern” , he will ask if you are interested "impressionism" or "surrealism" and so on…) . So the ideal search engine in our mind will be like talking to an all-knowing artifice intelligence librarian. After short conversation and several questions about your needs the search engine will perfectly understand you and will retrieve the most relevant results. 

PromotionWorld: How do you see the future of search engines?

Yohay Barsky: We believe the future of search engine will be very close to our ideal picture.  SortFix system takes us closer in the much needed progress by helping us communicate better with the search engines. The next step (our current R&D) is to apply additional NLP and semantic on top of the detailed search queries (generated with the help of SortFix).