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IBM R&D projects (or, I want WebFountain)

InformationWeek has an interview with Paul Horn, Sr. VP Research for IBM. They talk RFID (specifically probing at IBM’s chip strategy, the point of which eludes me), and about a very interesting search tool called WebFountain.

InformationWeek: What are some of the other innovative projects IBM’s research and development division is working on today?

Horn: We have a project where the computer can crawl the Web similar to Google, but instead of [relying on] a keyword search, it reads the text, understands the text, and allows you to mine the context, not just keywords. The researchers bought back this idea because they looked at all the unstructured information on the Internet and tried to figure out how to get value from it.

InformationWeek: How could a company use that technology?

Horn: You could use it to manage the brand. We did this for a record company and discovered the buzz in chat rooms was a terrific indicator of future record sales. The buzz in the chat room started and within two weeks the record sales [in a specific local region] increased. The software, Web Fountain, is a prototype piece of research software that requires many servers to scan the Web. With the software, companies can manage their brand, predict future sales in a specific geography, or determine what attributes will push sales higher or lower. But this is a combined research and consulting service, because once companies gain access to this information they [will want to] reengineer their business processes to have the correct products in regions at the right time.

InformationWeek: Could this type of research turn into a business unit or division within IBM Global Services?

Horn: It could. We have 13 of these micro-practices that are embryonic, incubating service applications. The Web Fountain research application is part of Text Analytics, which is one of the 13. If any are successful, we can make them part of the consulting services business.

I want Web Fountain. Now.