Browse > Home / Archive: January 2010

| Subcribe via RSS

Quick Q&A on Extractiv

January 31st, 2010 | 3 Comments | Posted in Blog

I had so much fun writing up my answers to Mark Johnson’s panel questions that I thought I’d put together another “mock” interview — with myself.

This time, I’m going to be tackling some of the more popular questions we get regarding Extractiv. As a brand-new start-up (only about 8 weeks old), we’re still finding our strengths, but I thought it’d be safe to share a little more about who we are — and what we’re trying to do under the Extractiv name. Want to know more? Write us at support@extractiv.com; we’d be happy to answer any questions you might have (or to show you a demo)!

(As always, the views expressed on this blog are mine, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Language Computer or Extractiv or its subsidiaries or parent companies. Well, until we get the Extractiv Blog put together and start blogging there in earnest, that is.)

Interview after the jump…

More »

Tags: , ,

Recap: Future of Semantic Search Panel @ Web 3.0

January 31st, 2010 | 3 Comments | Posted in Blog

I had the good fortune on Thursday to be a part of a panel on semantic search at the Web 3.0 Conference. The panel was organized Mark Johnson(Bing/Powerset) and featured the likes of Connie Kenneally (TextWise), Will Hunsinger (Evri), Tim Musgrove (TextDigger), and yours truly (LCC, Swingly, Extractiv, etc.).

Mark put on an absolutely great panel. In addition to being one of the most knowledgeable people in our industry, he’s a natural-born moderator and a talented discussion leader. He’s got great journalistic chops too: definitely not one to shy away from asking the tough questions.

Since I wasn’t able to capture video of the panel, I thought I’d try to recreate my side of the discussion. Here are some of the questions that Mark asked — and the gist of the answers I gave. (Or would have given.)

More after the jump…

More »

Tags: , , ,

Introducing: Extractiv @ Web 3.0

January 29th, 2010 | 2 Comments | Posted in Blog

Here’s Shion Deysarkar and me talking about how our new service, Extractiv, at this week’s Web 3.0 Conference in Santa Clara.

Don’t know much about Extractiv?  Here’s our official blurb.

Extractiv is a new kind of content provisioning service which is making the Web truly actionable. Rather than simply passively “monitoring” the Web, our industry-leading data harvesting and content extraction goes out and delivers the information that really matters to you and your business. With Extractiv, it’s easy to build semantically-aware applications – regardless if you’re a newcomer to the Semantic Web or a deep believer in the power of semantic metadata. Let us show you what we can do for you!

Introducing: Extractiv from Andy Hickl on Vimeo.

Posted via web from andyhickl’s posterous

Post Web 3.0 R&R

January 28th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Blog

Oceanside, CA

Posted via email from andyhickl’s posterous

Why I love California

January 27th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Blog

Sunset over the Pacific. Snow-capped mountains and the Central Coast.

Posted via email from andyhickl’s posterous

Learning more about Swingly and Extractiv

January 27th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Blog

Wanted to post some quick breadcrumbs for people interested in learning more about the two early-stage startups coming from Language Computer.

Swingly (http://www.swingly.com)

  • Who? Alpha-stage question-answering company capable of finding answers in the Web of unstructured text
  • Our goal? Answer users questions from content locked up in text.
  • Our advantage?
    • Amazing natural language processing, semantic search, and question-answering technology
    • Long track-record of building some of the best Q&A systems ever built
  • Why you should pay attention: We have built the largest index of questions and answers ever created:  we know the answer to more than 10 billion questions.
  • Get an invite: http://www.swingly.com

Extractiv (http://www.extractiv.com)

  • Who? Alpha-stage data harvesting and content extraction company
  • Our goal? Making the Web truly actionable. Rather than simply passively “monitoring” the Web, we go out and delivers the information that really matters to you and your business.
  • Our advantage?
    • Incredible, scalable web crawling and data harvesting from 80Legs
    • Access to more semantic types than any other content extraction provider
      • Thousands of names
      • Hundreds of attributes, facts, relationships, and events
    • Customizable, trainable extraction which can scale up to any need (or any level of performance)
  • Why you should pay attention: We can turn the unstructured Web (blogs, Twitter, etc.) into structured content you can use.  (Usually in 30 minutes or less. )
  • Get an invite: support@extractiv.com

Don’t Miss: “The Evolution of Semantic Search” @ Web 3.0

January 27th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Blog

The Evolution of Semantic SearchThe potential for semantic search to take on the role of an all-purpose engine is dead. Building a search engine is just too expensive: a massive capital expenditure, a huge team, and a marketing campaign to hook users are beyond the reach for most companies, let alone a startup. And, the big players are already integrating more and more semantic technology, such as Microsoft’s acquisition of Bing and Yahoo’s SearchMonkey initiative. That being said, there are still many ways for semantic technology to provide value to smaller domains in search. It’s time we refined our notion of semantic search and discuss what’s next for semantic search startups.

Andy Hickl Will Hunsiger Mark Johnson Connie Kenneally
ANDY HICKL
CEO
Swingly		 WILL HUNSINGER
CEO
Evri		 Moderator
MARK JOHNSON
Senior Program Manager
Bing at Microsoft 		CONNIE KENNEALLY
CEO
Textwise
I’m part of an excellent panel (organized by Mark Johnson of Powerset/Bing fame) this morning at the Web 3.0 Conference in Santa Clara.

We’re slated to tackle the question of “what’s next” for semantic search — a worth topic, indeed!

But, I have the feeling that we’ll all be circling back to the more vexing problem of exactly how companies who have invested in semantic technologies can create real (sustainable, sexy, growing) markets for their products.

There’s no live feed, but I’ll get shakycam video up later this afternoon.

Posted via web from andyhickl’s posterous

Tags: , ,

Success!

January 23rd, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Blog

So, here’s real-live output from one of LCC’s customizable event extraction models running “hot” as part of an 80Legs web crawl.

  1. IED, bomb, LOCATION, town, DATE, Monday, VICTIM_COUNT, four, VICTIM, civilians, VICTIM_COUNT , four, VICTIM, Sri Lankan navy officers
  2. LOCATION, BANGKOK, IED, bomb, LOCATION, tea shop, DATE, Wednesday morning, LOCATION, Thailand, VICTIM_COUNT, three, VICTIM,people,VICTIM_COUNT,nine
  3. VICTIM_COUNT, 4, LOCATION, SRI LANKA, IED, Bomb, IED, MINE, DATE, yesterday, LOCATION, Sri Lankan port, LOCATION, Trincomalee,VICTIM_COUNT, five,VICTIM, people,VICTIM_COUNT, eight
  4. VICTIM_COUNT,Two, VICTIM, people, LOCATION, Jordan AMMAN, DATE,April 3, VICTIM_COUNT, Two, VICTIM, people,VICTIM_COUNT, four, IED, bomb,LOCATION, Jordan, DATE, Monday, LOCATION,Jordan

Don’t understand what this all means?  Don’t worry.  All will be explained soon.  Stay tuned!

Sample Bombing Events

January 23rd, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Blog

We're using this post to test something out for a service we're building.  I'll explain later.  And no, I'm not interested in blowing stuff up.

A bomb exploded in a residential neighborhood of this northeastern Sri Lankan town Monday, killing four civilians and wounding four Sri Lankan navy officers, police and witnesses said.

Bomb In Southern Thailand Tea Shop Kills 3, Injures 9

BANGKOK (AP)–A bomb exploded at a tea shop Wednesday morning near a busy market in violence-plagued southern Thailand, killing three people and injuring nine, police said.

Two killed in Jordan by bomb contained in Iraqi scrap metal Amman, April 3

(QNA)-two people were killed and four others were injured when a bomb hidden in scrap metal imported from Iraq exploded in khalidiyah town in the Mafraq governorate.

Two Killed In Bombing At Italian Base In S Iraq-Report ROME (AP)–A bomb blast hit an Italian base in southern Iraq Thursday, killing at least two people, Italian news agencies reported.

Following are some of the recent major bomb attacks in the southern city that is also Pakistan's commercial capital: April 11, 2006 May 8, 2002-A car bomb outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi kills 14 people, including 11 French engineers.

Asia-Pacific 4 SRI LANKA Bomb deaths A MINE exploded yesterday in the Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee, killing five people and wounding eight others, officials said.

Two people killed in explosion in eastern Jordan AMMAN, April 3 (Xinhua)–Two people were killed and four others were injured when a bomb exploded in eastern Jordan on Monday, Jordan's security authorities said.

Three bomb attacks shook Istanbul in late March and early April, killing one person and inuring more than 40, while unprecedented Kurdish riots in towns

Posted via email from andyhickl’s posterous

Congrats, CompanyDallas!

January 9th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Blog

I just learned that CompanyDallas was named as one of Google’s most popular places in Dallas for 2009. Thanks to everyone who made it possible. While I was one of the founders of CompanyDallas, it’s been run — almost since its inception by Matthew Titsworth (matthew@companydallas.com). Look for big things to come in 2010!

By the way: if you’re a startup looking for temp space, Matt would love to hear from you: we’re always looking to hook up people with big ideas with a place to make ‘em real!

Posted via email from andyhickl’s posterous