In c4911 transmitted at 10:50e, August 18, 2008 an error occurred in the
eighth paragraph. The second sentence should have read "The software was
especially popular with financial regulators, such as the Investment
Dealers Association..." and not "The software was especially popular with
financial regulators, such as the Ontario Securities Commission..."
Corrected copy follows:
Sprylogics' Cluuz.com Search Engine Featured in Globe & Mail
TORONTO, Aug. 18 /CNW/ - Sprylogics International Corp. (the "Company" or "Sprylogics") (TSX-VENTURE: SPY), a developer of next generation semantic search technologies was recently featured in the Globe & Mail online.
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"A New Way to Challenge Google
Some Upstarts Want Users to Rethink the Way They Find Information
Online. The Tech Heavyweights Have Noticed"
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While tech heavyweights Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. spend billions trying to wrestle control of the Web search industry from Google Inc., a growing collection of niche search engines are rethinking the way users find information - and they are catching the attention of the big three.
By developing tools that scour Web pages for the actual meanings of words, rather than merely providing a list of sites with matching keywords, these challengers hope to create services that help users find what they're looking for faster.
It doesn't mean these upstarts are trying to beat Google at its own game. That's not the point, says Michael Frank, chief executive officer of Toronto's Sprylogics International Inc., the makers of Cluuz.com, a semantic search engine attempting to get users to rethink the way they find information online.
"What consumers want is to be able to find information faster, and they want clues to help them find their way to that information faster," Mr. Frank said. "What we're doing is quite unique and nobody can do what we're doing."
Search engines such as Cluuz use the science of semantics - the study of meaning in language - to produce more relevant searches.While the site works as a stand-alone search engine, it could also work if it were rolled into existing offerings at Google, Yahoo or Microsoft's MSN, Mr. Frank said.
In July, Yahoo announced it was opening up its search index data to developers as part of a project it dubbed Build your Own Search Service (BOSS). In a press release announcing the BOSS program, Cluuz was one of four services Yahoo cited as examples of innovative search tools built using the platform.
Cluuz grew out of business intelligence software that Sprylogics designed to help companies mine and analyze data on their own internal servers. The software was especially popular with financial regulators, such as the Investment Dealers Association, which uses Sprylogics' technology to map the relationships and past dealings between companies and individuals it is investigating.
To create a commercial search engine, Sprylogics simply took its enterprise search and analysis software and tweaked it to filter Yahoo's search index data through the BOSS application.
By delivering results that reflect what a user is actually looking for - rather than just locating keywords in certain pages - Cluuz and other semantic search properties believe they can also help deliver more relevant advertising to users than what Google currently offers.
If, for example, someone were looking for information about installing blue headlights on their car, a traditional search for "blue headlights" would deliver pages that included those keywords. A semantic search engine, however, would also bring up pages dealing with "illumination accessories" or "after-market auto parts," said Tim Richardson, an e-commerce professor at Seneca College in Toronto and an expert in search technologies.
It is that level of context that allows semantic search engines to present information in a way similar to how humans typically think.
Semantic search is a hot area for both entrepreneurs and tech heavyweights. In early July, Microsoft shelled out $100-million (U.S.) to purchase Powerset, a San Francisco-based company that produces a Wikipedia semantic search tool. Other semantic search providers such as Hakia.com - which has amassed more than $21-million in venture funding - are also growing their user bases while attracting interest from the big three.
With a market cap of about $5-million (Canadian), Mr. Frank knows that Google isn't worried about Cluuz, but he does believe the standalone search engine his team has created can survive on its own or make a great addition to one of the top existing search sites.
"We believe we're one of the top three or four alternative search engines in the marketplace," Mr. Frank said. "You're going to see more and more search engines become part of other applications, so we think that this application will be particularly well suited for when you're looking for people or companies or entities of any nature."
Early semantic search trailblazers such as IAC/InterActiveCorp's AskJeeves.com - renamed Ask.com in 2005 - have struggled to attract mainstream users since the mid-1990s, and have been met with a variety of other challenges, most notably cost.
Developing software that can index the vast troves of information on the Internet, analyze it and then quickly present relevant search results is expensive and difficult.
Last month, Cuil Inc. - a startup founded by ex-Google employees - unveiled a new search engine that claims to index three times as many Web pages as Google. But the site was met with an overwhelming criticism by users who found the results were often inaccurate and unhelpful.
The key to success in semantic search is all about putting results in context. That becomes more difficult as the amount of information on the Web increases, Mr. Richardson said.
"The reason why people wanted to develop semantic Web search engines is because it's a more real way of finding stuff," he said. "Keeping in mind that the content is growing faster, search engines need to be more effective at reflecting the thinking of real people."
But with more than two-thirds of all searches emanating from Google, people are accustomed to the way it works. A successful semantic search engine will need to educate users very quickly about how their particular site works, said Leslie Owens, an analyst with market research firm Forrester Research Group.
"Some people think that the behaviour of how people express their information needs has been established by Google, so even though they don't express it in natural language they do use just a couple of words," she said. "Can that behaviour be untrained if they could express things more completely in a full sentence or in a question? That's to be determined. Google just has so much market share right now."
Cluuz also shows the connections between various Web documents and sites based not on actual links between pages but on the information on the pages through a technology it calls semantic cluster graphs. It displays these results in a visual format that resembles a spider's web.
A full copy of the article may accessed at the following link -
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080813.wrsearch14/BNStory/Technology/
About Sprylogics International Corp.
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Sprylogics International Inc. develops advanced search, analysis, and information display tools and services. These solutions enable users to search large amounts of unstructured data on the Web, and in internal corporate databases, and convert it into actionable intelligence. The core technology driving Sprylogics' solutions is embedded in the Cluuz Search Engine platform which enables both consumers and corporate users to methodically search the Internet and internal corporate resources and find the information they are looking for. Cluuz search results are visually displayed through patent pending semantic graphs and result in improved decision making capabilities. To find out more, visit www.sprylogics.com, and www.cluuz.com.
Certain statements in this press release may constitute "forward-looking" statements which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, such statements use such words as "may," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "project," "believe," "plan" and other similar terminology. The risks and uncertainties are detailed from time to time in reports filed by the Company with securities regulatory authorities to which recipients of this press release are referred for additional information concerning the Company, its prospects and the risks and uncertainties relating to the Company and its prospects. New risk factors may arise from time to time and it is not possible for management to predict all of those risk factors or the extent to which any factor or combination of factors may cause actual results, performance and achievements of the Company to be materially different from those contained in forward-looking statements. Given these risks and uncertainties, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results. The forward-looking information contained in this press release is current only as of the date of this press release. There should not be an expectation that such information will in all circumstances be updated, supplemented or revised whether as a result of new information, changing circumstances, future events or otherwise.
The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept
responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
%SEDAR: 00021389E
For further information: Sprylogics International Corp., Michael Frank, CEO, (416) 221-5119 Ext. 22, or michael@sprylogics.com
© CNW Group
