Supports Rapid Development of Semantic Applications with Open
Access
to Automated Metadata Generation Capabilities
Debuts Calais Developer Community at OpenCalais.com
NEW YORK--(Business Wire)--Reuters (NASDAQ:RTRSY)(LSE:RTR), the global information company,
today announced the release of an open Application Programming
Interface (API) for its new Calais Web service. The API, which
provides commercial and non-commercial parties with free access to
state-of-the-art semantic tagging capabilities to enhance their
applications and content, is available at OpenCalais.com
(http://www.OpenCalais.com).
The Calais Web service enables publishers, bloggers and sites of
all kinds to automatically metatag the people, places, facts and
events in their content to increase its search relevance and
accessibility on the Web. It also lets content consumers, such as
search engines, news portals, bookmarking services and RSS readers,
submit content for automatic semantic metatagging that is performed in
well under a second.
The Calais Web service returns content in an open, interoperable
and entirely portable format, with a unique identifier that can be
easily integrated into social networks, widgets and semantic
applications like Powerset, Freebase, Twine, Hakia, Wikia, Blue
Organizer and more.
Calais is a new Reuters initiative that supports the
interoperability of content and the development of the Semantic Web -
a layer of contextual intelligence that enables computers to 'read'
content, detect connections and even make new ones. Calais leverages
Reuters' substantial investment in semantic technologies and Natural
Language Processing (NLP) to offer free metadata generation services,
developer tools and an open standard for the generation of semantic
content.
"The world is still suffering from information overload," said
Gerry Campbell, President, Search and Content Technologies, Reuters.
"Web 2.0 applications have set content free to a great extent, but the
explosive distribution of information doesn't always help users find
exactly what they need, when they need it,"
"Semantic tagging offers superior sorting and filtering of content
for more targeted and timely delivery," he added. "Calais eliminates
the cost of manually creating those tags while giving publishers an
effective means of metadata transport. We look forward to working with
developers on creative means of extraction that can help usher in the
next great wave of innovation on the Web."
The Calais Web service:
-- Automates the generation of semantic metadata;
-- Incorporates any additional publisher-developed metadata; and
-- Transports that metadata across the content ecosystem via a
persistent URI (Uniform Resource Identifier).
To get started:
1. Publishers and developers can go to www.OpenCalais.com to
secure the Calais API key and download instructions for how to
create and integrate a customized metatagging application for
their content, commerce site or online community.
2. They can then programmatically submit their content to Calais
to identify many types of semantic entities (people, places,
organizations, etc.); facts (person 'x' works for company
'y'); and events ('a' occurred at place 'b' on date 'c').
3. The metadata results are stored centrally and returned to
publishers in industry-standard RDF format with a unique
identifier1 (URI) to that ensure easy content retrieval by any
downstream consumer.
Today, Reuters also announced the first Calais Web service contest
with a bounty for applications developed using the Calais API. The
company will award $5,000 to the developer who builds a Calais-based
plug-in for Automattic's WordPress(TM) Personal Publishing Platform.
The applications must use the Calais Web service API and:
-- Offer automatic blog content scanning;
-- Support rich meta-tagging;
-- Create and maintain a semantic tag cloud for each blogger to
post; and
-- Embed the related Calais URI.
For more information, please go to www.OpenCalais.com
About Reuters' Search and Content Technologies
The Calais initiative (www.OpenCalais.com) is a product of
Reuters' Search and Content Technologies (SCT) group, a global center
of excellence comprising top information architects, developers and
engineers. SCT brings deep expertise in content technology, text
analytics and user experience to existing Reuters' products while
driving breakthrough progress in the delivery of relevant information
& insight to customers and consumers alike.
About Reuters
Reuters (www.reuters.com), the global information company,
provides indispensable information tailored for professionals in the
financial services, media and corporate markets. Through reuters.com
and other digital properties, Reuters also supplies its trusted
content direct to individuals. Reuters drives decision-making across
the globe based on a reputation for speed, accuracy and independence.
Reuters has 17,500 staff in 94 countries, including 2,400 editorial
staff in 196 bureaux serving 131 countries. In 2006, Reuters' revenues
were GBP 2.6 billion.
1 RDF constructs accompanied by a Uniform Resource Identifier
(URI)
Reuters
Krista Thomas, +1 415 202 3523
Krista.Thomas@reuters.com
Copyright Business Wire 2008
