PROVIDENCE — Ever get frustrated when your Internet search engine just can’t connect with the word you’ve typed? Ever want that search engine to be a little more probing, to get at what you’re really thinking? One Rhode Island company hopes it has the solution, but probably needs some heavy thinking on the part of investors to make it happen.
Simpli.com is the latest presenter at the Brown Venture Forum, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday (April 27) in Room 166 Barus-Holley Building, corner of Hope and George Streets in Providence.
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Simpli.com says it has developed a product (patent-pending SimpliFind) that dramatically improves search and eCommerce infrastructure on the Internet.” SimpliFind, the company said, uses principles of linguistics and cognitive science to interact with users to understand what they are interested in, “not merely what word(s) they enter into a search query.”
The company maintains this improves search results and also targets one on one marketing for eBusiness companies that are searching for high potential customer prospects.
How it works
Here’s how it works, according to the Brown Venture Forum and the company: Once a user enters a query into one of the company’s business partner’s search sites, SimpliFind references its proprietary linguistic knowledgebase (SimpliNet), identifies query terms with multiple concepts and prompts the user to “disambiguate” the query terms by selecting from a list of specific meanings. After that, SimpliFind automatically expands the user’s query with related terms to identify and increase the ranking of the most relevant.
Simpli.com, the company said, also build a personal copy of the SimpliNet for each registered user to “capture” specific terms and concepts and use them as “default concepts” in future search sessions.
According to the Brown Venture Forum, the company is seeking partnerships with leading Internet companies, and, while it has received seed capital, hopes to raise additional venture capital to complete the commercialization of its product and continue research and development.
Presenting the case
Jeffrey M. Stibel, chairman and chief executive officer of Simpli.com will presents the company’s case, which will be heard by a panel that includes William J. Geary, general partner, North Bridge Venture Partners; Daniel L. Harpel, Jr., chairman, CEO and president of Context Media; Courtney Exter, principal of Courtney Glenn Exter; and Edward Weisberg, president of bx.com. Mark Thaller of Zero Stage Capital will make a special introduction.
