calais for ona
DESCRIPTION
Presentation given to ONA08TRANSCRIPT
Introducing Calais• A Thomson Reuters initiative designed to make content
interoperable on the Web
• A free API that anyone can use
• An easy way to automatically metatag the people, places,
facts and events in your content
Why metatagging matters:
• We’re still suffering from
information overload
• Web 2.0 doesn’t make it easier
to find the information you
need when you need it
• Metatagging makes it easier to
sort and filter content for both
‘push’ and ‘pull’ systems
(search, RSS feeds, timely &
targeted delivery, etc.)
The market for tagged content is here• Semantic apps are being
built by some of today’s
hottest start-ups
• Metadata is the de-facto
‘lingua franca’ of the
content ecosystem
• Publishers seek a simple
way to make their
content available ‘Web-
wide’
How it works
The Process
Calais accepts unstructured text and uses sophisticated NLP and machine learning techniques to return intelligent metadata
Calais progress to date• Launched in late January, 2008
• Already, 5,700 developers have joined OpenCalais.com
• Approx. 1 million content ‘transactions’ per day
• Delivered three major update releases
• Lots of interesting apps– The Mail & Guardian Online (http://www.mg.co.za/)
– www.powerhousemuseum.com
– Gist.whistlehog.com
– http://www.opencalais.com/gallery
Quick tagging demo
Self Organizing Content• If I (automatically) know the topics, people, places, events in
my content
• I can (… with a little technology)
– Automatically create topic hubs and more like this functionality
– Organize inbound content to the appropriate sections of my site
– De-duplicate content
– Enhance search and navigation
Example: The Mail & Guardian Online, South African Newspaper
Using Calais to metatag new and historical articles, and:1. Build an index or topics A-Z2. Pull out automatic related articles or pictures3. Create news alerts on companies or people 4. Pull up maps for the countries named in articles5. Predict readers’ interests based on browsing habits 6. Create tag clouds, showing popular subjects, people, etc.
Using Calais to optimize search and navigation; drive consumer engagement
Example: Gist - today’s news filtered by people, places & events
GIST uses Calais to prioritize stories, rank newsmakers & reveal trends / reader demand. It automatically aggregates multiple news sources and slots them into topic.
Three easy ways to get started
1. Use Calais to automatically tag your archives = improved search & navigation
2. Use Calais to drive alerts or feeds based on events, not just keywords= timely alerts on events your readers care about
3. Use the Calais toolkit of end-user ready applications!= no coding required; get immediate benefits
• Three modules make it easy for Drupal users to automatically tag content
• Generate rich semantic metadata• Deliver a simple key for integration into the larger content
ecosystem
• Calais Tagaroo is for bloggers on the WordPress.org platform
• Calais Marmoset creates metadata for Yahoo! SearchMonkey
Thank You!
Thomas Tague, Calais Initiative Lead VP Solutions, ClearForest, a Thomson Reuters Company
Thomas Tague, Calais Initiative Lead VP Solutions, ClearForest, a Thomson Reuters Company