Personification Inc. - Press Releases

Personification Offers Free Text Summarization Service at textsummary.com

TORONTO, Ontario, Canada - March 13, 2000 - Personification Inc. announced today that its popular text summarization technology will be showcased in a free service at textsummary.com. The summarization engine represents a key component in the company's efforts to produce knowledge management solutions through personalization. Through textsummary.com, users will have the opportunity to summarize any text-based documents or websites while also giving Personification the ability to evaluate and improve its technology.

The text summarization engine utilizes state of the art technology to analyze a document's structure, grammar, and keywords before applying vector-based algorithms to generate a coherent summary. It can be used to summarize the contents of any text, including web pages, reports, essays, business plans, and e-mail. Users simply copy and paste text directly into the form, or direct the summarization engine to a URL of choice. "It has an uncanny ability to drill down to the essence of a message," says Mark Chignell, Personification's Vice-President of Research and Development. "It has proven to be an invaluable tool. We've heard that a venture capitalist is using it to screen all unsolicited business plans and he swears by it."

The service is an important offering for Personification because the company promotes text summarization as a primary technique for enabling users to deal with information overload. Notes John Male, President and CEO of Personification, "With textsummary.com we are able to demonstrate the viability of summarization as a key component in knowledge management solutions, as well as to give an advantage to users of handheld and mobile information devices." According to Male, current summarization techniques are inadequate in dealing with the amount and variety of text available to users, and they are not easy to use. Personification is soliciting feedback from users of textsummary.com in order to fine-tune the component so that it can be offered in future products.

A new version of the text summarization engine is currently under development; it is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2000. The new version will have several enhanced features such as advanced grammatical intelligence and the ability to optimize summarization according to document type. "Several companies have expressed interest in incorporating a custom version of our text summarizer in their products," says Male. "We are happy to work closely with our customers to ensure the deployment of effective personalization solutions." Personification also plans to showcase other personalization components as they are developed.

CORPORATE OVERVIEW:

Personification produces technologies for mobile and personalized information access. The company believes that people should control their information by getting the right content at the right time. The company provides personalized, customized and targeted solutions that will increase your business' overall growth, productivity and effectiveness. Personification delivers and licenses personalization products and consultation services based on a set of core technologies.

For additional information, please contact:
Nicole Anderson, Press Relations Liasion
Phone: 416.628.6220
Fax: 416.628.6233
E-mail: nicole@personification.com

Read our privacy guidelines.