Crystal Semantics Launch Textonomy Deduce e-commerce search technology

Innovative Linguistics Based Search Technology Helps Online Customers Find The Products They Want

July 21, 2004 -- Internet content and search company, Crystal Reference Group, has announced the launch of an innovative linguistics-based technology to enhance the search capabilities of e-commerce sites. Textonomy Deduce uses the structure and sense of the words contained in a search to greatly increase the chances of website visitors finding the products they want within a websites catalogue.

According to Ian Saunders, Managing Director of Crystal Reference Ltd., Textonomy Deduce delivers a uniquely human understanding of language to e-commerce. It is commercial suicide to lose customers simply because they choose a different form of words to describe a product than those used in a sites online catalogue.

Catalogue managers have to anticipate all the different descriptions of a product which a customer could have in mind. Textonomy Deduce provides a comprehensive database which includes such variations as British and American English ('cellphone' vs 'mobile phone'), singulars and plurals ('cellphone' vs 'cellphones'), variations of spelling and spacing ('cellphone' vs 'cell phone'), and colloquial descriptions ('mobiles').

By adding semantic categories, Textonomy Deduce also handles ambiguity - for example, distinguishing between 'shampoo' (for hair) and 'shampoo' (for carpets). In cases where a store does not have a particular product, the system guides the enquirer to related products within the same product range.

Textonomy Deduce vastly improves the speed and efficiency of the sales process, greatly enhancing the site's ability to meet the customer's demands.

Under the direction of Professor David Crystal, using a system he originally devised for The Cambridge Encyclopaedia and other works, a team of lexicographers took over four years and an investment of 4 million Pounds Sterling to build the dataset on which Textonomy Deduce is based.

For Further Information Please Contact:
Leigh Richards
The Right Image (PR)
Tel 01932 240055
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Or
Ian Saunders
Managing Director
Crystal Semantics, a division of
Crystal Reference Systems Group
Tel 0845 166 1772
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About Crystal Semantics www.crystalsemantics.com

Founded in 2001, leading internet content and search group, Crystal Reference Systems, has provided online content for many major publishers including Penguin Books, A&E Television Networks and Webster Publishing. The company is one of the fastest growing online content publishers in Europe.

About Textonomy
The sense engine which drives Textonomy is the result of a development programme which has taken six years to complete and involved an investment of over 4 million Pounds Sterling in lexicographic and encyclopaedic research.

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