Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Disappoint-ensity

W hen a watchful mentor emailed me a link to Attensity over the weekend, I was encouraged, finding, from a quick glance at their web site, that some of the same data-mining they market, as their hallmark, matches up with a few of the configurations defining a project I have underway.  Attensity claims to process data and analyze that which is otherwise difficult to discern.  Their software churns away like some kind of high-powered heuristic meaning-cruncher--a processor of mass quantities of text into readable metadata.  NORA (non-obvious relationship awareness) for large-scale discourse. 

So I sent them an email inquiring about the whole plot, all-the-while-recalling that the only other text parser I looked up asked $2k per year for software licensing.  Did I mention I'm a grad student?

Well, I did mention that in the email to Attensity, the email inquiring about their project.  And I heard back today--a polite note, something about serving the US Intelligence community and a starting fee of $50,000. And something about wishing me the best in my quest.  Thanks.  But no thank-you. 

The proliferation of textual analysis apps self-identifying as the devices built to root out terrorism piques my interest.  Perhaps because of the sheer volume of text to be analyzed for particular patterns (suspicious patterns! watch the parentheticals, Attensity!), mass-discourse text parsers are up and coming.  And so unbelievably over-priced that they're no use whatsoever to the project I'm working on.

Posted by dmueller at March 8, 2005 10:47 PM to Slouching Toward