More Content Processing Brand Confusion
September 7, 2012
On a call with a so-so investment outfit once spawned from JP Morgan’s empire, the whiz kids on the call with me asked me to name some interesting companies I was monitoring. I spit out two or three. One name created a hiatus. The spiffy young MBA asked me, “Are you tracking a pump company?”
I realized that when one names search and content processing firms, the name of the company and its brand are important. I was referring to an outfit called “Centrifuge”, a firm along with dozens if not hundreds of others in the pursuit of the big data rainbow. The company has an interesting product, and you can read about the firm at www.centrifugesystems.com.
Now the confusion. Google thinks Centrifuge business intelligence is the same as centrifuge coolant sludge systems. Interesting.
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There is a pump and valve outfit called Centrifuge at www.centrisys.us. This outfit, it turns out, has a heck of a marketing program. Utilizing YouTube, a search for “centrifuge systems” returns a raft of information timber about viscosity, manganese phosphate, and lead dust slurry.
I have commented on the “findability” problem in the search, analytics, and content processing sector in my various writings and in my few and far between public speaking engagements. My 68 years weigh heavily on me when a 20-something pitches a talk in some place far from Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky.
The semantic difference between analytics and lead dust slurry is obvious to me. To the indexing methods in use at Baidu, Bing, Exalead, Google, Jike, and Yandex—not so much.
How big of a problem is this? You can see that Brainware, Sinequa, Thunderstone, and dozens of other content-centric outfits are conflated with questionable videos, electronic games, and Latin phrases. When looking for these companies and their brands via mobile devices, the findability challenge gets harder, not easier. The constant stream of traditional news releases, isolated blog posts, white papers which are much loved by graduate students in India, and Web collateral miss their intended audiences. I prefer “miss” to the blunt reality of “unread content.”
I am going to start a file in which to track brand confusion and company name erosion. Search, analytics, and content processing vendors should know that preserving the semantic “magnetism” of a word or phrase is important. Surprising it is to me that I can run a query and get links to visual network analytics along side high performance centrifuges. Some watching robots pay close attention to the “centrifuge” concept I assume.
Brand management is important.
Stephen E Arnold, September 7, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Poderopedias Technology Tracks Chilean Elite
August 30, 2012
A new technology tested in the Poderopedia project completely changes the meaning of “Big Brother is Watching.” The tools are first being run in Chile to promote transparency. Data storage and queries are being used to map out and visualize the different relationships between Chile’s most influential people. The article, The Semantics Behind Poderopedia tells us a little more:
“These technologies allow us to represent a diverse set of relations between entities (people, companies, organizations) in a flexible way. The goal is to identify and express relations of power and influence of people and organizations…we added many new classes and subclasses of connections. This may sound trivial, but it involved a lot of debate and the hard work of our entire team before we could show it to others — with the hope that it could be a small contribution to the open-source community.”
This is a very interesting way to implement the use of these semantic technologies – and if the logistics of Poderopedia are of interest there is a link on the article to more details, which is a recommended quick read. Of course, it is safe to assume that if it works in Chile it’s only a matter of time before it spreads to other countries, including the US. But, here in the states it appears that invasion of privacy could come to the forefront in the execution of this kind of technology.
Edie Marie, August 30, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Semafora Buys Out Ontoprise GmbH Semantic
August 29, 2012
If you have ever traveled to Karlsruhe, Germany you could have run across the company Ontoprise GmbH. This past May after the company announced their bankruptcy they let us in on their plans to be taken over by Semafora. Semafora systems GmbH is a well known player in the semantics game. They offer product solutions and even services catering specifically to semantics. The article by Eric Franzon, Ontoprise GmbH Semantic Product Line Taken Over by Semafora goes into a little more detail about this joint venture:
“Following the news in May that German company Ontoprise GmbH filed for bankruptcy, Semafora Systems GmbH has announced that it will be taking over Ontoprise’s product divisions…The transition also means that the base of operations for these products has moved from Karlsruhe to Darmstadt.”
It is unclear what brought on the companies failure to perform. Ontoprise GmbH was known for their offerings of innovative semantic technologies, information management, and products that allowed active semantic information’s integration. Due to the nature of the company’s focus on new technologies we believe that this match up is going to be a good one. The combination of an innovator with a steadily established business in the market can make for some breakthroughs in the future.
Edie Marie, August 29, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Expert System Client Wins Web Site Award
August 18, 2012
In another “we won a prize” announcement from a search and content processing vendor, Expert System boasts, “Expert System Customer Telecom Italia Recognized for Top Website.” Telecom Italia‘s site, which uses Expert System’s Cogito semantic technology, was named the top corporate site by KWD Webranking in its Europe 500 annual survey.
Naturally, Expert System takes the opportunity to highlight the newest Cogito features that helped Telecom Italia build a great site. The write up lists:
- “Did you mean?”: Cogito’s ability to understand the meaning of words facilitates greater access to information, even in the case of ambiguous requests. This feature suggests alternate formulas for search queries that contain errors or misspellings.
- Categorization: Expert System developed a custom taxonomy to categorize the Telecom Italia knowledge base, which enables more effective search and navigation of site content.
- Multilanguage results: In addition to search results in Italian, the search engine broadens results by including a separate set of results in English for each query.
- Results filtering by file type: Users can choose to refine results by the type of content they’re looking for, such as by web pages, videos or PDF.
All valuable features, to be sure. We find this crowing about prizes to be an interesting approach to marketing. Effective? Not sure.
Based in Modena, Italy, Expert System has satellite offices in Europe and the US. Business and government organizations in several fields use their solutions for data management, collaboration, and customer relationship management.
Cynthia Murrell, August 18, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Free Semantics and Ontology Ebook
August 16, 2012
Considering the pace of change within the field of semantic technologies, professionals need all the tools they can get just to keep up. One free resource that may help: “Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, Second Edition: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL” is available at BookShared.com. The description specifies:
“Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist is the essential, comprehensive resource on semantic modeling, for practitioners in health care, artificial intelligence, finance, engineering, military intelligence, enterprise architecture, and more. Focused on developing useful and reusable models, this market-leading book explains how to build semantic content (ontologies) and how to build applications that access that content.”
The second edition of the book has some useful enhancements. It covers the most recent semantic Web tools, includes details about the latest ontologies for prominent Web applications, and supplies more detailed examples than the first edition had.
Authors Dean Allemang and Jim Hendler developed a successful Semantic Web training series through consulting firm TopQuadrant. Allemang is that company’s chief scientist, and has served as an invited expert on a number of international review boards, including a review of the world’s largest Semantic Web research institute, Digital Enterprise Research Institute. Hendler is the Tetherless World Senior Constellation Chair at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and he writes prolifically on the topics of artificial intelligence, the semantic Web, agent-based computing, and Web science. Hendler has been advising the US government on the Data.gov project.
Cynthia Murrell, August 16, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Algebraix Vaunts Speedy Results
August 16, 2012
It looks like Algebraix is calling out competitor Revelytix, who is specifically mentioned as having been trounced in Sys-Con Media’s “Algebraix Data Announces Record-Breaking Semantic Benchmark Performance.” Algebraix boasts that, for 80 percent of queries, their benchmark test outperformed Revelytix’s best published results twelvefold. Yep, a dozen times faster. That does seem pretty fast.
The benchmark test was performed on Algebraix’s SPARQL Server RDF database using an Amazon Cloud EC2 Large hardware configuration. This setup is identical, the write up states, to the one used in the multivendor SP2Bench performance comparisons that Revelytix had published. The press release crows:
“Furthermore, Algebraix Data’s SPARQL Server is the only database to have executed all of SP2Bench queries, including all six of the queries that were not successfully executed within the Revelytix guidelines by other Resource Description Framework (RDF) databases. . . .
“‘The outstanding SPARQL Server performance is a direct result of the algebraic techniques enabled by our patented Algebraix technology,’ said Chris Piedmonte, co-founder and CTO of Algebraix Data.”
Algebraix Data is headquartered in Austin, TX. In 2004, the company was founded on the vision of real-time access to data, structured and unstructured, in a distributed, collaborative, and dynamic environment. Their technology has garnered seven US patents.
Revelytix boasts that their community-based knoodl.com is currently the most widely used ontology editing tool. The company was formed in 2006, and is based in Sparks, MD.
Cynthia Murrell, August 16, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Ontoprise Allegedly Files for Bankruptcy
August 15, 2012
We thought ontologies and taxonomies were the hottest things going; apparently they are not hot enough to protect even leading firms specializing in them. SemanticWeb declares, “Ontoprise GmbH Files for Bankruptcy.” Writer Eric Franzon reports:
“The firm Schultze & Braun has told the district court in Karlsruhe that lawyer Holger Blümle has been appointed provisional liquidator. In an official release by Schultze & Braun, Blümle states, ‘With their innovative solutions, Ontoprise has developed a very good market position. Since the products are used both directly and indirectly in other programs, I am confident that the company can be rehabilitated…Initial discussions with potential investors are already actively being pursued.'”
I’m glad the company has not given up hope, and I wish them luck. I do wonder, though– if they are so well positioned, what went wrong?
Founded in 1999, Ontoprise emerged from the research environment at the University of Karlsruhe. The company states they are a “leading provider” of semantic products and services for a variety of fields. At the core of their product line are OntoBroker and OntoStudio. Ontoprise is headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Cynthia Murrell, August 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
New Release of OpenCalais
August 12, 2012
OpenCalais gets a new release … soon. It has not come out as of this writing, but Calais’s blog announces that “A New OpenCalais Release On the Way.” It sounds like an upgrade that any site covering current events should be looking forward to. The post describes the enhancements:
“On the user-facing side of the equation you’ll see a number of new entities, facts and events related primarily to politics and intra and international conflict. Doesn’t look like either of those will be going away soon – so we thought they were worth implementing. You’ll see new information in candidates, Party Affiliations, Arms Purchases and a number of others.
“In addition to these new items, we’ve also enhanced our SocialTags feature for greater accuracy – in fact, you’ll see a number of accuracy improvements across the board.”
For those unfamiliar with the OpenCalais Web Service, it is a nifty free tool (“powered by” Thomson Reuters) that automatically incorporates semantic metadata into content. The best way to see what it does is to past a chunk of text, any text, into their Document Viewer. The tool will tease out and insert links for topics, social tags, entities (like organizations or industry terms), and events & facts. After you’ve played with that, check out the examples of ways the technology has been implemented on the Showcase page.
It is acceptable to use OpenCalais for commercial purposes, as long as users abide by the Terms of Use, but a Calais Professional version is also available for power users.
Cynthia Murrell, August 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
New Advancements in BI Semantics Asserts FiirstRain
August 11, 2012
Business Intelligence or BI is steadily becoming more and more relevant as we consumers continue to pursue online activity. The article, FirstRain Spotlights Semantics Across Domains discusses more about the application of newer BI technologies like FirstRain and how they are revolutionizing the playing field. The article claims that this particular BI can process thousands of pages of consumer relevant data for businesses on a daily basis from online content like news, blogs, PR, web sites, etc. YY Lee who is the head of the intelligence for FirstRain explained a little bit about how the company got to this point.
“Ten years ago we tried a taxonomy but they don’t really work because they are static…So we created a flexible data structure that could reflect the different atomic players and pieces in the business, and based on the information we see coming over we could [semantically] categorize and derive the structure of different business and relationships between entities. So, over time our internal data structures are driven by the information we process.”
By implementations like the addition of FirstTweet, a technology that processes Twitter postings for customer data it is clear sign that BI advances at least as fast as consumer activity does. But even this technology is flawed, “With tweets and social content the information ambiguity could just kill you,” Lee said in the article. One has to wonder if these kinds of kinks in the newest BI can even be solved before the technology becomes outdated.
Edie Marie, August 11, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Thetus Takes a Big Step for Education in Portland
July 27, 2012
Thetus just took a big step for education by jumping on board a special education program at the local college. The Thetus site proudly announced their future in education in the article, “Thetus Joins the Portland Cooperative Education Program.”
The Portland Cooperative Education Program (PCEP) connects local software companies with Portland State Universities Computer Science students. The students participate via internships with approved companies. Thus, students gain hands on experience in an internship atmosphere. PCEP hopes the end result will help students to focus their development and integrate more easily into a work atmosphere.
The students involved will have a specific regime, which is:
“Students round out their classroom experience by working 20 hours a week for four consecutive 6-month terms in the three tracks: Software Engineering/Software Development, Quality Assurance, and/or Developer Operations. The student changes companies at least once during their 24-month program.”
Thetus was created in 2003 and has provided semantic knowledge modeling and discovery solutions ever since. They specialize in extracting and managing information to support business decision making.
The internship program is a great way to further education with real life skills. By interning at Thetus students will gain insight into a variety of markets, such as energy, environmental, law enforcement, defense and intelligence.
Thetus is doing really good in Portland and joining the PCEP just earned them a spot on the honor roll.
Jennifer Shockley, July 27, 2012
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