Connotate's Information Agent Suite 6 Transforms the Web into a Research Goldmine

PRESS RELEASE

Connotate's Information Agent Suite 6 Transforms the Web into a Research Goldmine

Newly released platform provides access to a new universe of Web-based data, trends, and trigger points

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ – June 21, 2006 – Connotate Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of solutions which deliver actionable intelligence from the Web, today announced the release of Information Agent Suite 6. The new release offers several innovative features which further enhance the platform’s ability to access high value, Web-derived research. Connotate’s Information Agent Suite 6 builds upon Connotate’s Visual Abstraction and Web Mining technologies, along with its easy-to-use Agent creation interface, which eliminates the need for programming.   

“The world of financial research is changing rapidly” says Bruce Molloy , Connotate’s CEO.   “New limitations curtail analysts’ ability to directly access the companies they cover. At the same time there is a rich, near-infinite supply of fast-changing data on the Web covering almost everything including prices, inventory, pipeline flows and market-moving events. Connotate’s solution is uniquely suited to transforming this information into highly valuable research for both the Buy-side and Sell-side.” 

New Features in Information Agent Suite 6:

• Enhanced “RSS Enabling” AlertMonitor – “RSS enables” any site, and provides a real-time, scrolling desktop event display
• Intelligent Quality Monitoring – Auto-learning, artificial intelligence ensures quality and reliability of output even when sites change
• Enhanced Change Detection – Allows user to richly specify exactly the kind of changes that are important
• Data Annotation– Users can specify agent annotations for both browsing and retrieving Agents. Additionally annotations can be part of the output stream
• Normalization Capabilities – New capabilities have been provided to ensure standardized output  
• Automated Parameter Set Generation – Supports easy iteration through large numbers of pages
• Enhanced Server Architecture – Scalability and reliability continued to be improved. New additions include: Priority-Based Queuing, Parameter Framework, and enhanced Audit Functionality 

Real World Applications in Finance

• Utilize Valuable, Unique Data Sources and Create New Data Feeds – Data agents can be configured to monitor any of the 600 billion Web pages currently available. New information posted to a site can be automatically converted into real time data. Exotic foreign market sites, energy sites, commodity sites and many more can be transformed into streaming data.
• Monitor Specific Market Moving Events – Monitoring agents associated with a company’s site can watch earnings releases during scheduled windows of time.  Agents can wait for unexpected news. Sites can also be monitored for changes in management, product news, partnership developments, and business opportunities. Results can be sent to several devices including E-mail, workstations, databases, and IM. 
• Configure Automated Personal Research Assistants – Research agents can monitor and aggregate information from numerous sources. This information can be personalized through filters, classifiers and value-added processing. Complete personalized HTML reports can be generated and delivered automatically. Research departments can leverage existing expertise and greatly enhance productivity.
• Arbitrage Inefficient Markets – Harvesting agents enable the creation and execution of new arbitrage strategies. Areas of opportunity include energy, commodities, foreign, exotic and emerging markets.
• Integrate and/or Aggregate Valuable Web Content – Integration agents can be placed on any HTML Web site thus “XML/Web Service enabling” the site in just hours; government databases can be extracted and repurposed; diverse portfolio, fund, and account information can be integrated and/or aggregated.

Connotate Agent Suite™ - Feature Rich   

·Agents Empower Every Information Consumer in the Organization – From an organizational perspective, agents are highly effective conduits for connecting individual users with the data sources they require. By making the output of given data sources consistent and reliable, productivity increases significantly as less time is spent on manually monitoring, scrubbing, and formatting information.

Connotate Agent Suite™ Offers an End-to-End Solution.  Based on market input, and hundreds of meetings with both companies and industry analysts, Connotate created the Connotate Agent Suite. Combining Connotate’s Agent Studio,  Agent Library, and the AlertMonitor into one unified offering, the solution builds upon Connotate’s Visual Abstraction and Web mining technologies, along with the company’s easy-to-use GUI.   

• Agent types include: harvesting, monitoring, alerting, and integration  
• GUI-based agent creation, incorporated with machine intelligence, eliminates programming
• Robust platform is reliable, scalable, and fast
• APIs include integration points with data-feeds, databases, and other systems

Connotate Agent Studio™ 

The Agent Studio offers a comprehensive solution for monitoring, harvesting, mining and integrating content from the Internet, Intranets and Extranets. Its point and click user interface is intuitive and easy to use.

• Create Robust Agents in Minutes Using AI Graphical Interface – The entire process is GUI- based requiring no programming.
• Transform the Web into Your Own Database - Information agents can be configured to transform unstructured Web data into valuable structured information and deliver this information to databases and other destinations including E-mail, spreadsheets, and XML.
• Agents Navigate on Your Behalf: Follow Links, Fill in Forms, Utilize Passwords -  Softwareagents can navigate to the sources of information using a variety of techniques.
• Mine the Deep Web Using Automated Parameterization - Agents automatically step through lists of parameter values, and return sets of results.
• XML, Web Services ‘Wrap’ Any Web Site. -  Integration agents can be invoked programmatically through a standard Web services API. Content-driven applications can now make calls to the “World Wide Web Data Warehouse.”

Connotate Agent Library™ 

The Agent Library is an intuitive, user-centric interface for accessing a variety of powerful software agents. Users can subscribe to and personalize selected agents. A subscription screen is provided for managing and editing subscriptions. The Agent Server provides value-added processing such as advanced filtering, classification, and change detection. It is designed as an extensible platform.

• Subscribing to an Agent Takes Minutes – Upon entering the Agent Library, a user can select an agent by category or keyword. Creating subscriptions is easy.
  Watch Lists Help Manage Subscriptions – Users are given their own window for monitoring and editing subscriptions. Configurations and schedules can be changed at any time. Subscriptions can be made active or inactive reflecting seasonal or quarterly events.
• Personalization Includes Filtering and Change Detection – Users can customize each subscription. Change detection watches for given changes and delivers data only when they occur.
• Rich Scheduling Capabilities – The Information Agent Library™ provides basic and advanced scheduling modes. Schedules can be created to give more attention to selected event windows.
• Information Delivery For Both Humans and Computers – Agents can deliver to E-mail, Blackberry, IM, spreadsheets, desktop news displays, databases, XML, and more. 

Media Contact

Gina Cerami
Connotate, Inc.
Tel.: (732) 296-8844, Ext. 1078
Email: gcerami@connotate.com