Tag Archives: New York Times

Jan 25 2010

More on Cobalt (& Lexis' Mystery Project)

Logo of Westlaw.
Image via Wikipedia

The New York Times ran an article (link here) discussing “sweeping” changes to the Big Two, Westlaw and Lexis, in the pipeline. Project Cobalt, (previously discussed here), is slated for February 1. Lexis’ drop date has not yet been disclosed.

The Times article is an interesting read on the history of these giants and their motivations for change. You see, people are sick of paying huge amounts for a mediocre, 1980’s interface and functionality. Go figure.

West reps told the Times that it took 5 years to build the new service. Oh no. Does that mean the service is already 5 years out of date?  The article discusses relevancy by algorithm (second-guessing what the lawyer might actually be looking for) and a Google-like search interface. No mention of retaining Boolean search, though. Not 2010 enough, I suppose.

My jury remains out. It will reconvene on February 1.

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Dec 23 2009

Semantic Research For The Rest of Us

Popego
Image by magerleagues via Flickr

While stumbling through the reader tonight, I tripped upon an article by Dana Oshiro at ReadWriteWeb about a new semantic search engine called Meaningtool and a semantically-inclined feed generator called Popego.

These tools will help you cut down the noise and pull in the signal based on your interests and intended targets. After completing a profile, Popego provides you with semantic recommendations based on your on-line activity and social circles. Once you generate what Popego calls your “interest platform”, you can find more quickly relevant content and connect more readily with others based on your interests. Popego’s customized feeds can be widgetized and shared on your other sites and blogs.

Meaningtool will analyze any website, pull out the relevant terms and create categories based on these terms, generating a tag cloud. You can click on any of the categorizes and further refine and “tree” the resulting information. Meaningtool recognizes most of the popular Western languages. Meaningtool’s Category Manager allows you to “train” your semantic feed via relevant RSS feeds to get better results.

Meaningtool is currently being used by marketing firms to better target customers with advertising campaigns, publishers looking to improve their search engine ranking, and semantic Web developers.

Like my6sense, the iPhone tool that pulls the cream from your streams to the top, you need to train Popego and Meaningtool to get the most out of them. With the dizzyingly large amount of content on the Web, a little training goes a long way to bringing you want you want to see.

For laughs, I fed my own website’s URL into Meaningtool to see what would happen. After the engine finished thinking, it showed this graphic:

Scrolling down, the results expanded to a tag cloud and suggestions to improve my SEO (which desperately needs improving):

Finally, the bottom of the screen showed the most relevant terms according to the listed classifiers from services like the New York Times, LA Times, Reuters, and Digg:

For certain applications, I can see this being a very effective tool.

Check out the Meaningtool video here:

Popego’s demo video follows:

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Aug 6 2009

Graphing The Day

Bureau of Labor Statistics
Image via Wikipedia

Now this is really fascinating, particularly if you drill down into the various categories across different groups. The New York Times published this interactive graph on July 31, 2009 which shows how people over the age of 15 spend their day. The graph is compiled with information culled in 2008 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and purports to show results for “thousands” of people. The chart morphs when you select a group: everyone; men; women; employed; unemployed; not in the labor force; white; black; hispanic; age group; educational level; and number of children. When you scroll over the results, greater detail on the particular band pops up, changing as you move through the day.

I find interesting the breakdown on the chart between “work”, “household activities” and “family care.” Seems there might be some overlap there. There are also categories for: eating and drinking; assorted services; shopping; education; job search; nonfamily care; traveling; phone calls; volunteering; religious activities; sports; computer use; tv and movies (a shocking chunk); relaxing and thinking; socializing; other leisure; personal care; and sleeping. Oh, and my personal favorite “I can’t remember.”

Very interesting breakdown, indeed.

Hat tip to Feminist Law Professors.

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