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Factiva's Reputation Manager and Microsoft Answerbot and Newsbot are highlighted in a discussion of text mining tools under development for construction of advanced answer products. Such answers, however, should be accepted only with careful and concerted monitoring. End user clients of database professionals are not likely to do such monitoring, which requires 'discipline, focus, persistence, and time.' Microsoft's strategies indicate that 75% of Windows users do not use the right-click button, even though Microsoft's dominance with Windows indicates that just about all computer users do all their work on a computer. Microsoft is two years from release of its advanced rival to Google, which is called Microsoft Answerbot. An early version of Microsoft's direction can be seen in Microsoft's Newsbot and Blogbot services. The new products will not lead to sites where information may be available, as with Google, Yahoo! Search, and other search engines, but instead will 'answer questions authoritatively--and briefly, if people plan to receive their answers on tiny PDAs.' Such products as Factiva Reputation Manager, which was done in partnership with the IBM Web Fountain high-end text-mining platform, will provide real assessments and could eliminate half the staff at Fortune 500 competitive intelligence centers. The very advanced service builds evaluative factors into assessments, and may be considered an information adviser, rather than an information source.
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