Web Search–IBM
Source: Forbes
What Does IBM’s “Web Fountain” Have To Do With Web Search? (Beginning at Pargraph #8)
Here is something we will be keeping an eye on. In an article about research at IBM we learn the following, “One of the ways IBM has done that is a program called “first of a kind.” This happens when researchers meet with a customer to develop a custom product. Sometimes, if the custom product is successful, IBM will replicate the product and sell it to other customers. This is the case with something called Web Fountain, which [Paul] Horn, [IBM's senior vice president of research] Horn refers to as “Google on steroids.” The company has high hopes for Web Fountain, which was originally developed for a record company. The technology reads and understands text, and uses natural language to make correlations between words. Unlike traditional search, Web Fountain searches everything on the Web, including chat rooms, when set to that parameter. In the case of the record company, Horn says Web Fountain was a two-week leading indicator of sales. “The buzz in the chat rooms for an upcoming CD indicated what was going to be a hot seller.” Alfred Spector, vice president of services and software for IBM Research, says the company will begin selling pieces of this technology later this year. It can be applied not only to basic search but tacked onto call center and e-mail applications. Thanks to M.W. for the news tip.
UPDATED 8/11: eWeek’s Darryl Taft With Another Article About Web Fountain
See Also: An IBM Overview of Web Fountain
WebFountain Info From IBM Almaden Research Center
See Also: A May, 2003 Fortune article about Web Fountain
See Also: Made to Order: IBM makes sense of unstructured data (via IBM Think Research)
See Also: “WebFountain: IBM Buzzes the Web for Intelligent Applications” (via EContent)
Make Sure to Take A Look at Monday’s Post About Another New Web Search Project Called Nutch
See Also: ResourceShelfPLUS with a Look at Recent Search Patents
Note: Link Analysis, what Google calls PageRank first developed for the web by IBM’s Clever Project. Page and Brin used some of these ideas to develop PageRank. Many Clever Project link analysis ideas are now being used by Teoma. Make sure to read this 1999 article about web search by the Clever Project team.

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