Information Today
Volume 18, Issue 2 — February 2001
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PurpleYogi, The Wall Street Journal Online Offer Web Assistant

PurpleYogi, Inc.(http://www.purpleyogi.com), a creator of distributed knowledge management software called Discovery Systems, and The Wall Street Journal Online (http://www.wsj.com) have announced that they will offer WSJ Yogi, a co-branded Web assistant, to the newspaper's subscribers. WSJ Yogi is an intelligent, personalized, online content-discovery service that automatically links users of the WSJ.com site with the Web content most relevant to them.

According to the company, the Discovery Systems software classifies documents into a rich taxonomy of concepts by comparing the statistical patterns embedded within documents against concept models created using proprietary advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and information theory.

The WSJ Yogi, which will be offered as a free download on WSJ.com, is a desktop application for Internet browsing that learns a user's interests and suggests related content instantaneously as the user browses the Web. The WSJ Yogi learns the interests of each subscriber based on what they read online, then actively connects him or her with the most recent and relevant news from WSJ.com and other leading content providers.

The Yogi works continuously, displaying related and recommended content as headlines within a window on the user's desktop. It also accompanies users as they surf the Web, relieving WSJ.com subscribersfrom the task of searching for content of interest to them. The WSJ Yogi can be downloaded at http://www.purpleyogi.com/products/yogiwr/downloadwsj/index.html.

The Yogi Internet Discovery System is also available for general Internet use, and is available at http://www.purpleyogi.com/products/yogiwr/download/index.html.

"The Yogi links users to unstructured information from the Internet that isn't stored or managed within a database," said Rakesh Mathur, PurpleYogi's co-founder and CEO. "Our software empowers Internet portals and publishers to provide users with relevant content and enterprise portals to deliver relevant information to employees so they can make more informed and faster decisions."

"The Yogi is an illustration of the capabilities of our distributed knowledge management software," said Ramana Venkata, PurpleYogi's co-founder and chief technology officer. "Our technology understands concepts within unstructured text and connects knowledge distributed across an enterprise with the right individuals, so our customers have the ability to leverage the vast quantity of unstructured information stored across their enterprise. By linking information to those interested in it, companies can realize value from their vast stores of unstructured content without manually classifying documents and building expensive data or knowledge repositories."

PurpleYogi, Inc. was founded in September 1999 and is funded by SOFTBANK Venture Capital; Intel Capital; Skyblaze Ventures, LLC; and individual investors. Customers include Fortune 500 enterprises, media publishers, Internet portals, and content-management and portal platform providers.

Source: PurpleYogi, Inc., Mountain View, CA, 650/988-2000; http://www.purpleyogi.com.

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