A Case For Knowledge Base Driven Information Mining – A WebSummarizer Use Case

We use terms like “knowledge economy” (Peter Drucker) , “knowledge as the fuel for innovation” (Nonaka) to emphasize the value we put on knowledge.

Putting knowledge to work requires tools enabling the gathering and structuring relevant information as factors driving innovation, creativity, and  invention.  In practice tools and techniques are tangible instruments of applying knowledge to solving real life challenges.

This is especially important in modern information society “where the creation, distribution, use, integration and manipulation of information is a significant economic, political, and cultural activity”. (see here)

Both concepts - knowledge economy and information society - are closely related by its emphasis on increasing technological capacity to store,  analyze and compute information as bases for data mining and discovery.

In our daily practice we can see the that a direct impact of knowledge economy is measurable in the explosion of scientific and medical discoveries, technological  patents and rapid research progress.

Information overload and information wealth

On a practical human scale we are facing information overload – a condition described as “the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much information.” (see here)

Clay Shirky operationally defined information overload rather as a case of filter failure in his famous talk at  Web 2.0 Expo NY:  "It's Not InformationOverload. It's Filter Failure"

In reality we should rejoice and take advantage of the fact that we have unprecedented in the human history access to information wealth. And to cope better with information wealth we need automated  smart tools allowing us to take advantage of this unparalleled access to information.

Let’s take a practical case from our daily work. Research tells us that we spend almost  one third of our time searching for relevant information.  Of course finding relevant data is critical to our productivity but  spending one third of our productive time on searches leaves not much time on the actual creative usage of our findings.

On one hand we have the challenges with large data sources that includes capture, storage, and search of relevant information and then we need effective tools for sharing, analysis, and visualization. On the other hand all of us can benefit from knowledge mining tools allowing us to concentrate on applying knowledge instead of using our precious time on inefficient searches. 

Knowledge Base – practical tool set for discovery

In short knowledge base allows us to see how different pieces of information are inter-connected! This is the principle of how the Web works: it is all about linking web pages.

However, what is even more useful is to link the topics that are discussed on those web pages with related topics on other pages. This allows are to purely look at the relationships as a family of connections without the distraction of seeing the the unrelated information.  This allows us to focus on the topic in context of its relationship, correlation, influence, meaning, to other topics and contexts. Such information filters help with understanding and conveniently provide facts and insights to form our judgment and decisions.

Here is an example of Visual Knowledge Map. The topic is "Learning". The sources for generating the Visual Knowledge Map are numerous articles in Wikipedia that address the subject of learning in rich context. The Visual Knowledge Map was generated by WebSummarizer.

The Visual Knowledge Map is interactive. You can click on the + and - signs to zoom in and zoom out.

 

Visual Knowledge Map - Topic: Learning - Generated by WebSummarizer from Wikipedia knowledge base

Visual Knowledge Map - Topic: Learning - Generated by WebSummarizer from Wikipedia knowledge base

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About WebSummarizer:

WebSummarizer is a powerful text mining and visualization application.  It offers rapid summarization of web pages and documents, creation of personal and corporate knowledge bases. 

The summarization results are presented as: 

•   Visual Summaries

•   Visual Knowledge Maps

•   Tree Views (structured text)

•   Keywords Cloud, and

•   Visual Summaries and Visual Knowledge Maps can be exported to HTML, word editors and mind mapping applications. 

You can summarize text in English, French, German and Spanish.

         VISUALIZE and SUMMARIZE web pages and documents with WebSummarizer.

BlogSummarizer, WebSummarizer and WikiSummarizer are products of Context Discovery Inc.

Summaries in everyday life

The importance of summaries

The ability to write an effective summary might be one of the the most important writing skill you possess.

You need to be able to summarize to be effective at writing demanded by your work, schoolwork, and it is a vital part of note taking too.

To answer questions such as “what was the movie about?” “how did the game go?” and “what did I miss in class today?” you must be able to summarize.  Your questioner doesn't want to know every line and action in the movie, every play in the game, or every word from class;  the question asks you to select the important details and summarize them.  Similarly, when you summarize a reading you need to be able to find the important data and then present it as clearly and concisely as possible.

Many organizations employ people to read newspapers, social media, news feeds and summarize relevant stories and articles. The more concise the summary the better, yet if any major details are omitted the purpose of the summary is lost - its readers will be uninformed on key aspects of the news and may make critical errors as a result.

Summaries in everyday life

 If we look around it clearly visible that we are surrounded by summaries. In fact, a great deal of information we consume are summaries. We may think about the summaries as forms of advertisement where the purpose is to catch the attention and attract.

Let's have a look at some examples. Of course this list incomplete.

1. Headlines: summaries of newspaper articles  

 A headline's purpose is to quickly and briefly draw attention to the story. For journalists and editors a headline is to provide the center of the story, the beating heart of what the story is about.

2. Table of Contents: summary of a book, magazine  

Table of Content, is a list of the parts of a book or document organized in the order in which the parts appear. It is a list that provides a quick overview of what the reader is going to find in the content.

The Table of Contents usually includes the titles or descriptions of the first-level headers, such as chapter titles in longer works, and often includes second-level or section titles within the chapters as well, and occasionally even third-level titles.

3. Digest: summary of stories on the same topic  

A digest format provides a sampling of favorite articles on many subjects from various monthly magazines, often condensing and rewriting them, and then combing them for convenience into one magazine. Well known examples are Reader's Digest, Golf Digest, Consumers Digest, and various electronic mailing lists.

 

The importance of summaries - interactive diagram

4. Highlights: summary of an event (meeting, sport event, etc.) 

The purpose of a highlight is to provide an especially significant or interesting detail or phenomenon to draw reader's attention.

The importance of summaries - interactive diagram

  5.  Abstract: summary of a scientific paper  

An abstract is a concise summary of a research article, review, thesis, conference proceeding or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject or discipline, and is used to help the reader quickly understand the paper's purpose. An abstract always appears at the beginning of a manuscript.

It is the point-of-entry for any given academic paper or patent application. Abstracting and indexing services for various academic disciplines are aimed at compiling a body of literature for that particular subject.

 

 6. Bulletin: weather forecast, stock market, news  

There are physical bulletin boards, typically made out of cork to pin messages and advertisments. And there are electronic bulletin boards which serve the same purpose as a physical bulletin board.

The purpose is to provide brief information snippets and essential facts. The emphasis is on brevity and facts.

  

7. Biography: resume, obituary  

A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. It entails more than basic facts (education, work, relationships, and death), a biography also portrays a subject's experience of these events.

A biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of a subject's personality.

  8. Abridgment: of books 

Abridgement is a term defined as "shortening" or "condensing" and is most commonly used in reference to the act of reducing a written work, typically a book, into a shorter form.

A written work may be abridged to make it more accessible to a wider audience; for example, to make an adaptation of it as an audio book or a television show, to make a more convenient companion to an already established work, or to create a shorter reference version.

 

 9. Review: of books, music, plays 

A review is an evaluation of a publication, a product, a service or a company such as a movie, video game, musical composition, book, car, home appliance, or computer; or an event or performance, such as a live music concert, a play, musical theater show or dance show.

In addition to a critical evaluation, reviewers may assign the work a rating to indicate its relative merit.

  10. Scale-downs: maps, thumbnails 

A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes.

It is to give us a quick visual orientation. Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search engines and image-organizing programs normally use thumbnails

  

11. Trailer: from film, speech, presentation  

A trailer or preview is an advertisement or a commercial for a feature film that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema. A book trailer is a video advertisement for a book which employs techniques similar to those of movie trailers. 

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About WebSummarizer: WebSummarizer is a powerful text mining and visualization application.  It offers rapid summarization of web pages and documents, creation of personal and corporate knowledge bases. The summarization results are presented as:

•   Visual Summaries

•   Visual Knowledge Maps

•   Tree Views (structured text)

•   Keywords Cloud, and

•   Visual Summaries and Visual Knowledge Maps can be exported to HTML, word editors and mind mapping applications. 

You can summarize text in English, French, German and Spanish.

         VISUALIZE and SUMMARIZE web pages and documents with WebSummarizer.

BlogSummarizer – your blog knowledge base companion

Blogs are invaluable information resources and great communication tools. They allow you to share and learn as you go and reach out to interested people outside your regular circles. 

As useful as blogs are, a great deal of accumulated information is lost in the growing archives. 

Blogs are structured to provide only the most recent information. It is far less convenient to find what you need when you have to dig back for information from older posts. This is especially significant when you have authored hundreds of posts over a period of time. In this case, having a tool to organize your information into a handy knowledge base will give you easy access to all of your blog posts in the context of your search.

This is exactly what BlogSummarizer provides.

All your blog post are summarized and indexed and the summaries and keywords are organized  into powerful and easy-to-use knowledge bases. 

To display the content of a knowledge base, BlogSummarizer uses a powerful visualization engine. This engine generates on-demand visual summaries and visual knowledge maps. The visual summaries display the most relevant keywords with summaries, and the visual knowledge maps  provide you with a comprehensive network of related blog posts based on the entire content of your knowledge base.

All visual summaries and visual knowledge maps are exportable to browsers, word editors, and mind mapping applications. You can publish your visual summaries and visual maps simply by embedding them in your blog and web pages. 

Most importantly,  the visual summaries and visual knowledge maps run on all computers and devices: PCs, Macs, Linux, tablets and smart phones. 

What do you need to do to create your blog knowledge base? 

To create your blog companion knowledge base, you just need to provide your blog information to BlogSummarizer. 

After you submit your blog, the BlogSummarizer will read and analyze all your posts, will automatically create a companion knowledge base, and create a widget for you to include in your blog. The widget will allow all your readers to easily access, navigate, and benefit from your knowledge base.

Here is how the BlogSummarizer widget looks when you place it in your blog:

BlogSummarizer widget - based on the Communities and Collaboration blog 

Let’s review the widget functions since this is your key to unlocking the hidden knowledge in your blog.

In the drop-down list, users can select topics of interest. The system will then suggest the top 10 keywords from your blog:

10 top blog keywords drop-down list suggestions - based on the Communities and Collaboration blog 

The Knowledge Map button

The Knowledge Map button displays a visual knowledge map based on the entire body of writing in your blog. This map is interactive and sharable in any browser. Here is an example: 

Visual Knowledge Map - based on the Communities and Collaboration blog

Blog Keyword Knowledge Index

The Show All Keywords link -- instantly displays the list of all keywords in the blog. There is an alphabetical listing and a frequency listing by the blog's most important keywords. This way, it’s easy for you to see what the predominant topics discussed in the blog are and you can also find any topic alphabetically.

Here is an example of Official Google Blog Knowledge base:

Showing All Keywords Index - Official Google Blog example

As you can see, the BlogSummarizer Index provides Alphabetical and Frequency listing of keywords. The Frequency listing groups the keywords into 3 categories:

1. Strong - The most important topics discussed in the blog
2. Normal - Common topics addressed in the blog
3. Weak - Less frequently discussed topic

Blog Knowledge Base Keyword Search

The Keyword Search button - - allows you to search your knowledge base and instantly display the most important blog posts with summaries related to your search term. Here is an example of a visual summary:

BlogSummarizer Knowledge Base Search Results - based on the Official Google Blog

How BlogSummarizer makes your knowledge easy to publish and share

BlogSummarizer provides powerful and easy-to-use publishing and export tools so that  you can share your knowledge with the entire world.

To publish your visual summaries and visual knowledge maps in blogs and web pages, use the Get HTML Code button: 

                          

To export your visual summaries and visual knowledge maps to browsers, word editors, and mind mapping applications, use these export buttons: 

               

Here is an example of  using the HTML code to publish the Visual Summary and Visual Knowledge Map in your blog: 

Get HTML Code - example for publishing Visual Summaries and Visual  Knowledge Maps in your blog

In short, BlogSummarizer creates knowledge bases from all your blog posts that are immediately ready for research, learning, discovery and, of course, publishing so that you can share your knowledge with your readers. 

How the blog knowledge base can used

Using BlogSummarizer for creating companion knowledge bases is not limited to a single blog. A powerful way of leveraging a community knowledge is to aggregate personal blogs from several authors into a group’s knowledge base to give the benefit of shared and aggregated knowledge to all users. There are many associations and groups where several bloggers passionately share their views, work, and experiences.

Aggregating multiple blogs into a single knowledge base provides the added benefit of having easy access to rich and valuable points of view. 

Examples of such blogs are professional association blogs, community of practice blogs, academic blogs, and consumer blogs. These and many other types of blogs represent tremendous sources for creating collective knowledge bases.

How can you create your blog knowledge base?

Signing up is really easy. Just go to the BlogSummarizer site: http://websummarizer.com/blogsummarizer,  register and enter your blog credentials. Then sit back while the system creates the companion knowledge base, provides you with an widget to insert it into your blog...and you’re all set!

About BlogSummarizer:

BlogSummarizer is a powerful knowledge base companions for Blogger and WordPress blogs. It rapidly creates blog companion knowledge bases to allow users easy access to all blog posts in a visual map format. 

The results are displayed as interactive and easy to navigate:

1. Visual Summaries
2. Visual Knowledge maps

The Visual Summaries and Visual Knowledge Maps can be exported to HTML, word editors and mind mapping applications: Mindjet MindManager, XMind Pro, MindGenius, iThoughtsHD

BlogSummarizer, WebSummarizer and WikiSummarizer are products of Context Discovery Inc.