Vivisimo has introduced social search to the enterprise in the latest version of its enterprise search platform. Vivisimo reports that Velocity 6.0 will enable enterprises to increase collaboration among workers, accelerate innovation and gain valuable insight into the collective intelligence of their organizations.

By combining Web 2.0 concepts such as social networking, virtual folders, tagging and content mash-ups with the power of enterprise search, Velocity 6.0 enables users to easily tap the enormous human knowledge contained within their own organizations.

A key capability of Version 6.0 is social tagging, which allows users to vote on or rate search results using a numerical scale. Vivisimo says the subsequent insight into the usefulness of information can be used to adjust relevancy of results in real time, benefiting everyone else in the organization, or can be used to convey feedback to others. The new version empowers users to tag search results with keywords, providing a more efficient and faster search experience, claims Vivisimo.

The company further explains that allowing users to vote on, rate, tag, save and share content within the search interface is just the first step in creating a collaborative, information-enriching environment. Velocity 6.0 allows users to add their own knowledge about information found via search directly into the search result itself in the form of free-text annotation. Rather than sending an e-mail with a file attachment to colleagues with commentary about a document, users can have a dialogue about content right within the search interface. And social bookmarking within Velocity 6.0 allows users to save search results into virtual folders for future reference to use or share with others, such as a project team.

Another contribution to the social networking in Velocity 6.0 is support for expertise location. Profiles of colleagues are developed based on data from different repositories and are displayed in a single view as a mash-up application of pictures, contact information, biographical data and recent tagging activity. Velocity 6.0 also provides a visual map or executive dashboard of hot topics within groups, departments or across the entire enterprise, based on information that has been tagged, saved or shared, providing a window into the collective intelligence of the organization.

Coveo Solutions has introduced a full-featured, sophisticated and configurably enterprise search solution. Coveo Enterprise Search (CES) 5.0 further distinguishes itself through a highly intuitive interface--for both users and administrators.

Coveo highlights the following features in CES 5.0:

Distributed indexing. The capabilities are said to enhance the overall user experience in environments such as Microsoft SharePoint, while reducing, by up to 40 percent, network load caused by indexing. Through the use of index "mirrors," data located in different geographic locations is automatically synchronized into a single, integrated set of index results, enabling an optimized balance in speed and relevancy, and a more scalable approach to information retrieval.

More free connectors. The free library of connectors expands the flexibility of CES by allowing businesses to index content from the most commonly used enterprise repositories including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Exchange, Documentum and Symantec Enterprise Vault. Also included is API connectivity to Google OneBox for Enterprise, allowing users to obtain federated query results from content in enterprise repositories and business applications, such as SAP, Cognos and Business Objects.

Real-time ranking. Query Ranking Expressions (QRE) allow administrators and users to easily customize the rank of search results, enabling specified data to have a greater or lessened emphasis within the results set.

Enhanced SharePoint functionality. Users see better results faster than ever. With improved search navigation, live indexing and quick views of search results from Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 libraries, users can now get to the right information in record time.

Audio/video search in multiple languages. A media player for Microsoft Silverlight is included, as are audio/video search capabilities in U.K. English and French, enabling businesses to extend their searches to include a wide assortment of content from Web 2.0 applications, such as Webinars, podcasts and other audio/video content.

Secure interoperability. New security options, including early and late binding, enable search across the enterprise for quick and easy access to all relevant information within user security profiles.

Intuitive search interface. CES 5.0’s user interface includes pop-up "quick views," document thumbnails and the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds of search results. Users can customize and further refine their search queries by selecting sets of data to include or exclude from the search results, such as document formats, dates, languages, authors, etc.

Vital Path, a provider of content integration and migration solutions, has announced a beta program for testing its new federated search model for PathBuilder.

An off-the-shelf solution, PathBuilder has adapters for virtually all enterprise content management (ECM) systems, making it well suited for federated search across a variety of disparate content repositories.

The company says the PathBuilder suite of products provides solutions for content migration, consolidation, content synchronization, content virtualization, federated activities and in-place records management.

TOWER Software has released TRIM Context 6 Release 2 (6R2), described as a significant upgrade of its TRIM Context 6 solution, which helps organizations capture, manage, access and secure all information forms from electronic to physical. In a complete, advanced enterprise solution, TOWER says, TRIM Context 6R2 enables organizations to ensure compliance and prepare for e-discovery, increase security and protect information, improve responsiveness and enhance productivity, and achieve seamless integration for rapid deployment throughout the information life cycle.

TRIM Context 6R2's new modules and further enhancements include:

• support for the entire life cycle of information management (ILM) from creation to archival or deletion through tight, seamless integration with Microsoft user experience tools and HP StorageWorks archival technologies;
• a wide variety of interoperability options with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS); and
• support for the automatic creation and updating of information from any LDAP-compliant directory including Active Directory, increasing productivity and accuracy.

Teragram, a provider of multilingual natural language processing technologies, has announced the launch of Semantic Term Manager v. 2.0 (STM v. 2.0), software that enables management of content and maintenance of ontologies in enterprise content repositories and databases. STM v. 2.0 is intended to help corporate librarians to maintain ontologies and integrate this information directly with Teragram's TK240 taxonomy management tool. The combination of these two programs allows knowledge workers to maintain metadata across repositories and databases and to automatically tag documents according to the defined taxonomies. STM v. 2.0 works in tandem with Teragram's TK240 taxonomy management program. Information stored in the STM v. 2.0 database can be exported to Teragram's database management tool, TK240, to build complex taxonomies which can be used to automatically categorize documents and to extract entities and events from documents.

(www.teragram.com)

Author-it has announced Version 5.0, which is said to be the first content management system to include interactive authoring memory, Author-it Xtend.

The company claims Author-it Xtend provides a faster, more efficient method to reuse and share content and knowledge within an organization. Using intelligent "fuzzy logic" matching, this new feature makes all of the approved knowledge/content contained in a company's database available to content creators, eliminating the need to perform a time-consuming manual search.

Author-it explains that once a user begins typing, matching or similar content is located and returned instantly--even if the user is unaware that the content exists. Suggestions can be revealed in as few as three words and in a fraction of a second. Users can choose to instantly insert any of the suggestions, see what documents those suggestions currently appear in, or continue typing to refine the suggestions. Options controlling the behavior of the suggestions make it as unobtrusive--or as conspicuous--as the user chooses. Further, content can be restricted based on the company's security restrictions.

The reuse of content not only saves a company time and money in content production and localization (translation), it ensures that consistent messages are conveyed in both a company's external and internal communications. This method of locating matching content proves far more efficient than the current method, which requires users to perform their own search. In fact, research has shown that the inability or unwillingness to search for matching content is the primary reason users do not reuse content.

eZ Systems is expanding its flagship product, eZ Publish, with a new extension, enhanced features, and compatibility with PHP 5. eZ Systems has released an alpha version of eZ Publish 4.0 (which runs on PHP 5), as well as the stable releases of eZ Publish version 3.10 and the new eZ Find search engine (version 1.0). Feature highlights in these new eZ Publish releases include improved clustering performance, multilingual URL support, and enhanced ISBN and multi-option datatypes. eZ Find, a new extension for eZ Publish 3.x and 4.x, enhances the search functionality on eZ Publish sites and includes features such as relevance ranking, native support for eZ Publish access rights, keyword highlighting and the ability to search sites containing millions of objects.

(www.ez.no)

Exalead, a global provider of search software for business and the web, announced the availability of an OEM edition of its enterprise search software, exalead one:enterprise 4.5 OEM Edition. The OEM-specific version of exalead one:enterprise is designed for independent software providers (ISVs) to embed the search technology in their software applications in order to provide customers with unified information access to structured and unstructured data--regardless of format or location. Exalead one:enterprise 4.5 OEM Edition features Exalead's unified search technology that is suited to business and competitive intelligence, risk management, litigation, and email archiving solutions. Key highlights of exalead one:enterprise 4.5 OEM Edition include: New APIs (Application Programming Interface) to enhance data retrieval and usability; and Support for 32- and 64-bit platforms, including multi-core systems, across major operating systems (UNIX, Linux, Solaris, Windows) and compliant with standard technologies (XML, HTTP/REST, Java, .Net).

(www.exalead.com)

MPS Technologies unveiled BookStore Discovery, a tool designed to enable publishers to make their book content discoverable and accessible to the widest possible audience. At the same time, it allows publishers to retain control of the content and continue to use the payment process on their website. BookStore Discovery consists of four modules: Browse Inside, which allows readers to browse limited content from the book to review contents; Search Inside, which allows users to search for specific terms within the full text of the book, without having to browse; External Search Engine Indexing, allowing publishers' content to be discovered from users' desktops and favorite search engines; and Widget, allowing publishers and users to share the eBook with others via blogs, community, and social networking sites.

(www.mpstechnologies.com)

ACIS Consulting Inc, a Canadian reseller and systems integrator of powerful search and knowledge discovery solutions from Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), has released its newly redesigned RapidAnswer V3 FAQ Knowledgebase Management System; a Search Derivative Application (SDA) that directly integrates with FAST's Enterprise Search Platform (FAST ESP).

RapidAnswer V3, according to the company, is a complete Web 2.0 solution package that enables product owners and customer support departments to work in collaboration, with direct web based access to their respective product FAQ Knowledgebases, for end-to-end management of their product FAQs starting from initial creation; through approval workflow; to publishing to the website. FAST ESP is then used to automatically process this content and serve the search results along with the rest of the site search results.

Users can search the knowledgebase or browse by category to discover the most relevant and the most active FAQs. Category ranking is influenced by user interaction. The most frequently accessed information gradually moves to the top of the list. Questions at the top of the category list gradually move down if these are not being accessed for a long time.

The RapidAnswer solution leverages FAST ESP capabilities in natural language processing, rank tuning and relevancy modeling to quickly deliver precise answers to customer questions.

Collexis, a developer of high-definition search and discovery software, and its German partner, SyynX Solutions, announced they will preview a new life sciences social networking site to representatives from global book publishing and multimedia companies at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The comprehensive system of pre-populated expert profiles, coupled with the ability to analyze all associated professional connections within the network, allows scientists and researchers across multiple organizations to share data and collaborate. Over the next few weeks, a controlled group of research thought leaders are testing the site for a public launch slated for January, when the site's name and web address will be formally released to the public.

(www.syynx.de, www.collexis.com)